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Book 



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PRESENTED B^ 



Epochs of Modern History 



EDITED BY 



EDWARD E. MORRIS, M.A. & J. SURTEES PHILLPOTTS, B.C. L. 



THE FIRST TWO STUARTS AND THE 
PURITAN RE VOL UTION. 



S. R. GARDINER. 



EPOCHS OF ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Edited by Rev. G. W. Cox and Charles Sankey, M. A. 
Eleven volumes, i6mo, -with 41 Maps and Plans. Price per 
vol., $1.00. The set, Roxburgh style, gilt top, in box, $11.00. 

Troy— Its Legend, History, and Literature. By S. G. W. 

Benjamin. 
The Greeks and the Persians. By G. W. Cox. 
The Athenian Empire. By G. W. Cox. 
The Spartan and Theban Supremacies. By Charles bankey. 
The Macedonian Empire. By A. M. Curteis. 
Early Rome. By W. Ihne. , ^ . , 

Rome and Carthage. By R. Bosworth Smith. 
The Gracchi, Marius, and Sulla. By A. H. Beesley. 
The Roman Triumvirates. By Charles Menvale. 
The Early Empire. By W. Wolfe Capes. 
The Age of the Antonines. By W. Wolfe Capes. 

EPOCHS OF MODERN HISTORY. 

Edited by Edward E. Morris. Eighteen volumes, i6mo, 
vifith 77 Maps, Plans, and Tables. Price ptr vol., $1.00. 
The set, Roxburgh style, gilt top, in box, $18.00. 

The Beginning of the Middle Ages. By R. W. Church. 

The Normans in Europe. By A. H. Johnson. 

The Crusades. By G. W. Cox. 

The Early Plantagenets. By Wm. Stubbs. 

Edward IIL By W. Warburton, 

The Houses of Lancaster and York. By James Gairdner. 

The Era of the Protestant Revolution. By Frederic Seebohm. 

The Early Tudors. By C. E. Moberly. 

The Age of Elizabeth. By M. Creighton. 

The Thirty Years War, 1618-1648. By S. R. Gardmer. 
-The Puritan Revolution. By S. R. Gardiner. 

The Fall of the Stuarts. By Edward Hale. 

The English Restoration and Louis XIV. By Osmond Airy. 

The Age of Anne. By Edward R. Monis. 

The Early Hanoverians. Bv Edward E. Morris. 

Frederick the Great. By F. W. Longman. 

The French Revolution and First Empire. By W. O'Connor 

' Morris. Appendix by Andrew D. White. 

The Epoch of Reform, 183o-1850. By Justin Macarthy. 



THE 



FIRST TWO STUARTS 



PURITAN REVOLUTION 



1 603 — 1 660 



BY 

SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER 

LATE STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, 

CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 

LECTURER ON MODERN HISTORY AT KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON. 



WITH FOUR MAPS 



NEW YORK: 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 

1890. 



MAY 2 7 1904 






'^ ans f er 



1 FEBiSGi 



PREFACE. 



The present volume is a companion to the one on 
the "Thirty Years' War," and it has therefore been 
unnecessary to break the course of the narrative by 
constant references to events passing on the Conti- 
nent, which will be easily brought before the reader 
who consults the chronological contents at the begin- 
ning of the two books. 

In England, happier than France or Germany, the 
problem of religious liberty was worked out in close 
connection with the problem of parliamentary govern- 
ment. England did not, even temporarily, cease to 
be a nation, as Germany did ; nor did it, like France, 
surrender its power to control events into the hands 
of a single man. The interest of its history in the 
seventeenth century lies in the efforts made to secure 
a double object — the control of the nation over its own 
destinies, and the liberty of the public expression of 
thought, without which parliamentary government is 
only a refined form of tyranny. 

The present volume oply professes to recount a part 



vi Preface. 

of this struggle. The epoch comes to its proper end 
in the volume which is to follow it in the series. Even 
of this first part, too, I can only profess to tell a por- 
tion from the results of personal investigation. After 
the year 1634 I have to depend upon the researches 
of others, and I have very little doubt that in many 
cases the opinions expressed would be modified by 
fuller knowledge, and that even the facts would turn 
out not to be altogether in accordance with my state- 
ments. 

Those who wish to consult histories on a larger 
scale, will find by far the best general history of the 
period in Ranke's '' History of England principally 
in the Seventeenth Century," which has recently been 
translated. In even greater detail are Mr. Spedding's 
'' Letters and Life of Lord Bacon," Mr. Forster's 
'' Life of Sir John Eliot," his essays on " The Grand 
Remonstrance," and the ^'Arrest of the Five Mem- 
bers," Professor Masson's ''Life of Milton," Mr. 
Sanford's ** Studies of the Great Rebellion," and Mr. 
Carlyle's " Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell." 
Those who care to see what I may have to say on the 
earlier part of the period will find in three books — 
''A History of England from the Accession of James 
I. to the Disgrace of Chief Justice Coke;" "Prince 
Charles and the Spanish Marriage ;" and ''A History 
of England under the Duke of Buckingham and 
Charles L" — a connected history from 1603 to 1628, 
which will, I hope, be carried on further, before any 
unreasonably long time elapses. 



Preface. vii 

The maps have been constructed from Clarendon 
and other familiar sources, and, though they may be 
incorrect in some points, I hope they will give a 
clearer idea of the course of the war than is to be 
gathered from any written narrative. The first will 
show how far the statement is true that the wealthiest 
portion of England attached itself to the Parliament, 
and brings out distinctly the enormous comparative 
wealth of London. The calculations on which it is 
founded are derived from a statement in Rushworth, 
corrected in the instance of the County of Durham, 
from the original entry in the Privy Council Register. 
The second map may be said to express the natural 
strength of the King's party; for, though Oxford was 
not held by him at the actual commencement of the 
war, it took his side too vigorously to be counted as 
a mere enforced accession of strength. The third 
map shows the King's fortunes at their highest point, 
just before the Scottish army invaded England, and 
the fourth gives the position just before the New 
Model army set out to combat the King. 

The dates, unlike those in the volume on "The 
Thirty Years' War," are given according to the old 
style. 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER I. 

THE PURITANS AND THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, 
Section I. — Reformers and Puritans. 

PAG» 

The English Reformation the work of two classes of men, who 

may be called Reformers and Puritans . . i 

The former were favored by Elizabeth . . . .2 

Especially as Puritanism tended to Presbyterianism . . 3 

General desire for compromise at the close of Elizabeth's 

reign ....... 4 

Tolerant character of the literature of the time — Hooker, 

Bacon, Shakespeare . . . . .5 

Why was there, after all, a Puritan Revolution ? . .6 

Section H, — The Tudor Monarchy. 

Causes of revolutions ...... 7 

Modern constitutional arrangements aim at preventing revo- 
lutions . . . . . . .8 

Circumstances which had modified the mediaeval constitution 

in favor of the Royal power . . . > 8 

Instruments of the Royal power — the Court of Star Chamber, 

the Court of High Commission . . .10 

Elizabeth the centre of the national hfe . . .12 

Her dependence on popular support . , . . la 



Contents. 



Section III. — The Hampton Court Conference and the pro^ 
Union with Scotland. 

PAGK 

1603 Accession of James I. . . . . -13 

1604 The Hampton Court Conference . . • 13 
The House of Commons for concession to the Puri- 
tans . . ... . .15 

The canons of 1604 . . . . .16 

161 1 Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury, relaxes their strict- 
ness in execution . . . . .16 

1607 The Commons receive coolly the King's proposal for a 

union with Scotland . . . . .17 

The Judges declare all Scotchmen born since the 
King's accession to the Enghsh throne to be natu- 
ralized in England . . . . • I7 

Section IV. — The New Impositions and the Great Contract. 
1606 James' revenue does not meet his expenditure . 17 

The Judgment on Bate's case . . . .18 

1608 The New Impositions . . . . '19 
1610 The Great Contract . . , . . 19 

Breach between the King and his first Parliament . 19 
1614 The Addled Parhament . . . . .21 



CHAPTER II. 

THE SPANISH ALLIANCE. 
Section I. — Gunpowder Plot. 



1603 Condition of the Roman Catholics . , .21 
James promises to reheve them, but does not keep his 

word . . . . . • .22 

1604 Formation of the Gunpowder Plot . . .22 

1605 The plot betrayed . . . . .23 
" Seizure and-execution of the conspirators . .23 



Contents. XI 

Section \\.— James I. and Spain. 

PAGE 

l6o^ Spaniards unpopular in England . . .24 

161 1 James proposes to marry his son to a Spanish Infanta . 24 

1617 Raleigh's voyage to Guiana . . , .25 

1613 The Earl of Somerset becomes James' favorite . 26 

1615 He is convicted of murder, and succeeded by George 

Villiers in the King's favor . . . .26 

1616 View taken by James of his authority . . .28 

1617 H;s contempt of popularity leads him to overlook the 

dangers of a Spanish marriage . , .30 

Section IT I. — The Spaniards in the Palatinate. 

1618 Outbreak of a revolution in Bohemia . . • 30 

1619 James' son-in-law Frederick is chosen King of Bohemia 31 

1620 In spite of the arrival of English volunteers, the Palati- 

nate is invaded by the Spaniards, and Frederick is 
ejected from Bohemia . . . . • 32 

1621 Meeting of the third Parliament of the reign . . 32 
The Commons attack the monopolies . . -33 
And proceed to accuse Lord Chancellor Bacon of cor- 
ruption . . , . . . .34 

His sentence . . . . . .36 

Revival, though in an incomplete form, of the prac- 
tice of impeachment . . . . '36 

Section IN .— The Loss of the Palati.iate. 

1621 The Commons declare their resolution to support the 

King in defending the Palatinate . . .37 

Digby, sent to Vienna to negotiate a peace, fails to stop 
the progress of hostilities, and the King calls upon 
Parliament to supply him with money to carry on the 
war. The Commons, however, wish him to break 
with Spain . . . . . .38 

They also ask that he shall marry his son to a Protes- 
tant princess. James takes umbrage at this, and dis- 
solves Parliament . , . . •39 

1622 Through want of money James is unable to support his 

son-in-law, and the Palatinate is lost . , .40 



XII Contents. 

Section V. — The Journey to Madrid. 

PAGE 

1623 Prince Charles, together with Buckingham, goes to 
Madrid to conclude his marriage with the Infanta 
Maria, and to urge the Spaniards to procure the 
restitution of the Palatinate. . . , .41 

The Spaniards throw difficulties in his way . . 42 

The marriage treaty is, however, signed; but when 
Charles finds that he will not be allowed to bring his 
bride home at once, and that the Spaniards will not 
go to war to recover the Palatinate for his brother- 
in-law, he returns to England. . . •44 



CHAPTER III. 



THE ASCENDENCY OF BUCKINGHAM. 
Section I. — The last Parliament of James I. 

1624 James summons Parliament, and agrees to break with 

Spain . . . . . . .46 

But the declaration of war is postponed, in order to give 

time for negotiation with France and the German 

Protestants , . . . . -47 

Lord-Treasurer Middlesex is impeached . . 48 

A marriage treaty is agreed to between Prince Charles 

and the French Princess Henrietta Maria . . 48 

1625 Mansfield's expedition sent to recover the Palatinate 

ends in failure . . , . . '49 

Death of James I. . . , . .49 

Section II. — The first Parliament of Charles I. 

Charles, in order to carry on the war for the recovery 
of the Palatinate, summons Parliament, which fails 

to support him through distrust of Buckingham . 50 

He adjourns Parliament to Oxford, and then dissolves it 51 

Sends a fleet to Cadiz, which fails to do anything . 52 

Buckingham's diplomatic mission to Holland , . 53 



Contents. xiil 

Section III. — The Impeachment of Buckingham, and the Expedi- 
tion to Rhe. 

PAGE 

Revolt of Rochelle against Louis XIIL, who borrows 
English ships to overpower it . . . .54 

1626 Charles' second Parhament meets, and impeaches Buck- 

ingham . . . . . . • 56 

Charles dissolves it, and demands a free gift, and then 

a forced loan . . . . . • 5^ 

War breaks out between England and France . . 57 

1627 Buckingham leads an army to Rhe, and fails . . 58 

Section IV.— The Petition of Right and the Assassination of 



1628 Charles summons a third Parliament . . -59 

The Petition of Right . . . . .60 

After the Parliament is prorogued Buckingham takes the 

command of an expedition for the reUef of Rochelle 62 
But is assassinated at Portsmouth , * .63 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE PERSONAL GOVERNMENT OF CHARLES I. 
Section I. — Taxation and Religion. 
Dispute about tonnage and poundage referred to Parlia- 
ment . . . . . . .64 

Religious difficulties . . . . .65 

The King's declaration on the Articles . . .67 

Section II. — The Breach between the King and the Commons. 
1629 The Commons postpone the subject of tonnage and 

poundage . . • • • .68 

They take firm ground against rehgious innovations . 69 
Summon the custom-house officers to answer for seizing 
a member's goods 



Tumult in the House 
Parliament dissolved 
Punishment of Chambers 
of Eliot . 



and imprisonment and death 



XIV Contents. 

Section III. — Beginnings of Unparliamentary Government. 

PAGE 

1629 Constitutional question raised . , . .74 
Charles' ministers — Weston, Laud, and Wentworth . 76 

Section IV. — Ecclesiastical Parties. 

1630 Star Chamber sentences . . , . .80 
Laud enforces conformity to the Prayer Book . .81 

1632 Contrast between George Herbert and Richard Sibbes . 82 

1633 - The feoffees for impropriations . . . .84 
' The estrangement between the two parties not yet com- 
plete . . . . . . .85 

Section V. — New England. 

1608 Emigration of a Separatist congregation to Holland 85 

The colony of Virginia ' . . .86 

1620 The voyage of the " Mayflower " * . 86 

1633 Religious character of the New England settlers , 87 



CHAPTER V. 

THE REIGN OF THOROUGH. 
Section I. — General Enforcement of Conformity. 

1633 Laud becomes Archbishop of Canterbury . . 88 
Gives offence by the issue of the Declaration of Sports, 

and by removing the Communion tables to the east 
end of the churches . . . . .88 

1634 Prynne punished by the Star Chamber for the pubUca- 

tion of " Histriomastix " . . . .90 

The Inns of Court Masque, and Milton's " Comus " . 91 

1634-6 The metropolitical visitations . . . .93 
Section II. — Ship-money. 

1634 Forest courts held . . . • .94 
The first ship-money writ issued to the port towns . 95 

1635 The second ship-money writ issued to the whole of 

England . . . • • -95 

1637 The judges declare it to be legal, but Hampden resists 

the payment . . . • • • 9^ 

1638 Judgment given against him . . . .98 



Contents. xv 



Section III. — Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton. 

PAGE 

1637 Change of feeling sinee 1634 . . . .98 
Sentences of Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton . . 98 
General sympathy with the sufferers . . * 99 

1638 Milton's "Lycidas" . . ^ . . -99 

Section IV. — Wentworth in Ireland. 
1603 State of Ireland at the accession of James I. . . loi 

1610 The plantation of Ulster ..... 102 

1633 Arrival of Wentworth to be Lord-Deputy . . 103 

1634 He holds a Parliament . • . . . 103 
His activity ...... 104 

1635 He proposes to colonize Connaught . . . 105 



CHAPTER VI. 

RESISTANCE IN SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND, 

Section I. — The Downfall of Episcopacy in Scotland. 

Episcopacy in Scotland .... 106 

1637 Introduction of the new Prayer Book, followed by a riot 107 

1638 The Covenant is taken, and the General Assembly 

meets at Glasgow ..... 108 
It throws off the authority of the King, and abolishes 
episcopacy ..... 109 

Section II. — The Bishops Wars and the Short Parliament. 

1639 Probability that the resistance in Scotland would be 

followed by resistance in England . . .111 

The first war With Scotland followed by an agreement 113 

1640 The Short Parliament summoned and dissolved . 112 
Position taken by Wentworth at Court . .113 
The second war with Scotland ends in the King's 

defeat and necessitates the calling of a Parliament . 114 



XVI Contents. 

Section \\l,— The Meeting of the Long Parliament and the 
Execution of Strafford. 

FAGB 

1640 The Long Parliament meets . , , . nS 
Impeachment of Strafford .... 115 

1641 The impeachment is turned into an attainder . • n? 
His execution ...... 117 

Section IY. — Demands of the Commons. 
1641 The struggle for supremacy between the King and the 
House of Commons leads to a diminution of the 
powers of the Crown . . . . ,118 

The Scots return home . . . , .119 

Church questions remain to be solved . . .120 

The Moderates led by Falkland and Hyde . . 121 

Their weakness . . • . , .122 

Section V. — The Grand Remonstrance and the Rupture with the 

King. 
1641 Whilst the King is in Scotland news arrives of an Irish 

insurrection . . . . . .124 

Excitement in England . . . . .125 

The Grand Remonstrance drawn up and voted . 126 

1643 Impeachment of members of the House by the King . 127 

The King attempts to seize them . . .128 

The Commons take refuge in the City, and demand 

the control of the militia .... 129 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE DOWNFALL OF ROYALTY. 
Section I. — The Beginning of the Civil War. 
1642 The Commons conservative in feeling . 
Various elements of the King's army . 
The King sets up his standard at Nottingham 
Indecisive battle fought at Edgehill 
The King turns back from Brentford . 



130 

131 
132 

133 
134 



Contents, xvii 

FAGB 

Rise of Cromwell ..... 135 

1643 The King gains ground, but fails to take Gloucester . 136 
Death of Falkland at the first battle of Newbury . 136 

Section II. — Presbyterians and Independents. 

Meeting of the Westminster Assembly. The Scots 
invited to join their forces to those of the English 
Parliament . . . . . . 136 

The Covenant taken, and Presbyterianism adopted in 
England ...... 137 

Death of Pym . . . . . .138 

1644 Execution of Laud . * . . . 139 
Rising strife between Presbyterians and Independents 139 
Death of Chillingworth .... 140 
Spread of ideas favorable to liberty of conscience and 

speech ...... 141 

Section III. — Marston Moor and Nasehy. 
1643 Cromwell's success ..... I43 

The Scotch cross the border, and, in conjunction with 
Cromwell and Fairfax, defeat the Royalists at Mars- 
ton Moor ...... 144 

Essex's infantry surrender to the King in Cornwall . 145 
The second battle of Newbury leads to a quarrel be- 
tween Cromwell and the Earl of Manchester . 145 

1645 The Self-denying Ordinance .... 146 
Argument in favorof liberty in Milton's " Areopagitica" 146 
Formation of the New Model .... 148 
Montrose in Scotland . . . . . 148 
Defeat of the King at Naseby, and of Montrose at 

Philiphaugh . . . . . .149 

Section IV. — The Army and the Parliament. 
^646 The King takes refuge with the Scots . . .150 

In spite of the feeling of the army in favor of toleration, 
Parliament makes proposals to the King which offer 
no guarantees for liberty of opinion , . . 151 

1647 Charles, being surrendered by the Scots to the Parlia- 
ment, is lodged at Holmby House . . . 152 
B 



XVIII Contents. 

PAGB 

He is carried off to the army, which overpowers the 
opposition to Parliament, excluding eleven members 
by force ...... 153 

The army makes proposals to the King . • iSS 

Charles flies to the Isle of Wight, and is lodged at 
Carisbrooke Castle . . . . '155 

Section V. — The Second Civil War and the Execution of the 
King. 

1647 Dissatisfaction of the Scots at the predominance of the 

army ...... . 156 

1648 The news that a Scottish invasion is pending exasper- 

ates the English army . . . . 15S 

The Scots are defeated by Cromwell at Preston . 157 

The army secures the person of the King, bringing him 
to Hurst Castle ; they also overpower the House of 

Commons by Pride's Purge .... 158 

1649 Trial and execution of the King . . . 160 



CHAPTER Vni. _J> 

THE COMMONWEALTH. 
Section I. — Cromwell's Last Victories. 

Nature of the procedings against the King . . 161 

Establishment of a Commonwealth . . . 162 
Cromwell subdues Ireland .... 162 

1650 Montrose lands in Scotland, is taken and executed . 163 
Charles II. proclaimed in Scotland . . .164 
Cromwell defeats the Scots at Dunbar . 165 

1651 He again defeats them at Worcester . . . 165 
Charles II. escapes to France . . • .166 

Section II. — The Dissolution of the Long Parliament. 
The negative work of the Revolution accomplished . 166 
Ideas of the leaders of the Commonwealth . . 167 

1652 Their scheme for a new Parliament objected to by 

Cromwell . . . . • .167 



Contents. xix 

PAGE 

The Navigation Act is followed by a war with the Dutch i68 
Corruption in Parliament . . . .169 

1653 The Long Parliament dissolved by Cromwell . . 170 

Section III. — The Assembly of Nominees, 

1653 Meeting of the Assembly of Nominees . . 171 

It resigns its powers into Cromwell's hands , . 172 



174 
175 

176 
178 



CHAPTER IX. 

Oliver's protectorate. 

Section I. — Oliver s First Parliament. 

Constitutional difficulties of the situation . . 173 

Oliver Cromwell declared Protector by the Instrument 

of Government 

1654 Character of Oliver's Government 
Meeting of ParUament, which begins by questioning 

the Protector's authority , . 

1655 Oliver dissolves the Parliament . 

Section II. — The Major- Generals. 

1655 Limits of the toleration granted by Oliver 
After a Royalist rising, major-generals are appointed 

to place England under military control 
Suppression of Episcopalian worship . 
Oliver allies himself with France against Spain 
Milton's sonnet on the " Massacre of the Vaudois ' 
War with Spain . , . . 

Section III. — Oliver s Second Parliament. 

1656 Oliver summons his second Parliament 
Begins by excluding members whom he distrusts 

1657 The Petition and Advice 
Oliver refuses the title of King . 

1658 Dissolution of the second Parliament 

Section IV. — Death of Oliver, 
1658 Oliver's system could not last . 
Military and naval successes 
Kis death 



178 

180 
181 
181 
182 
183 

183 
185 
186 
186 
187 

188 
189 
190 



XX Contents. 



CHAPTER X. 

END OF THE REVOLUTION. 

Section 1,— Anarchy. 

1658 The Puritan revolution drawing to a close . . 191 
Richard Cromwell assumes the Protectorate and sum- 
mons a new Parliament .... 192 

1659 The Parhament is dissolved, and the Protector ejected 

by the army ...... 193 

The Rump, or survivors of the Long Parliament, re- 
stored by the army ..... 193 

The army quarrels with the Rump and drives it out, 
afterwards again restoring it , . . . 194 

Section II. — The Restoration, 

1660 Monk crosses the border with the army from Scotland, 

and is joined by Fairfax at York . . . 195 
He reaches London, and declares for a free Parliament 196 
The Long Parliament comes to an end, a new Parlia- 
ment meets, and restores Charles II. . . 197 

Section III. -^ The Ecclesiastical Settlement of the Restoration. 

1660 Principles of the Restoration .... 198 
1660-5 Acts passed against the Nonconformists, who begin to 

be called Dissenters . , . . -199 

l66r The Corporation Act ..... 200 

The doctrine of non-resistance adopted by Parliament 200 

1667-71 Milton's "Paradise Lost" "Paradise Regained" 201 

And " Samson Agonistes " .... 204 

Section IV. — The Revival of Parliamentary Opposition. 

1661 The Parliamentary view of the Constitution . . 205 
1664 Charles' financial difficulties, and war with the Dutch 206 
1667 Fall of Lord Chancellor Clarendon . . . 207 

Section V. — Revival of the Idea of Toleration. 

1667 The policy of Toleration adopted by the King . 208 
He wishes to include Roman Catholics . . 2o3 

1668 The Triple Alliance ..... 209 



Contents. xxi 



PAGE 
2IO 
2IO 
2IO 



1670 The Treaty of Dover .... 

1672 The Declaration of Indulgence 

1673 The declaration withdrawn 
The Test Act followed by a Bill for the relief of Dis 

senters, which fails to pass the Lords . .211 

Progress of Toleration . . . . .211 

Section Yl. — The Revolution ^/i688. 
1688 PoUtical results of tne Revolution . . . 212 

Future prospects . , . . .214 



MAPS 



^ I. England and Wales — showing the incidence of Ship-money 

in 1636 ..... To face title pagt 

\ 2. England and Wales — showing the districts held by the King 

and the Parliament on January i, 1643 . To face page 134 

nJ 3. England and Wales — showing the districts held by the King 

and the Parliament on January i, 1644 . To face page 144 

^ 4. England and Wales — showing the districts held by the King 

and the Parliament on May i, 1645 . . To face page 149 



THE FIRST TWO STUARTS 



PURITAN REVOLUTION. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE PURITANS AND THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 

Section I. — Reformers and Puritans. 

The English Reformation was brought about, as every 
other great change is brought about, by the co-opera- 
tion of two classes of men : the men 

§1.1 wo par- 

who are, on the whole, content with the ties to the 
principles by which they have hitherto eormaion. 
guided their lives, though they think that some changes 
ought to be made in matters of detail ; and those who 
start upon an entirely new principle, and who strive to 
realize an ideal society which commends itself to their 
own minds. They answer, in short, to the Whigs and Ra- 
dicals of modern political life, whilst the Conservatives 
are represented by a third class averse from all change 
whatever. 
The first class — the Reformers, as we may call them 

who, on the whole, controlled the movement, 

g 2. The Re- 
were content with gradual and slow change, formers. 



2 Puritans and House of Conijnons. 155 8-1603. 

They were ready to examine every practice and doc- 
trine by the test of Scripture and the custom of the ear- 
ly Church, but they were willing to retain all that could 
not be so shown to be worthy of rejection. In this way 
they held that the white vestment of the minister, the 
kneeling attitude of the congregation at the administra- 
tion of the Communion, the observation of days set 
apart for fast and festival, were commendable obser- 
vances reaching the heart through the medium of the 
senses, and encouraging a habit of devotion by the use 
of bodily action. 

Alongside of these men were others who cared no- 
thing for ancient tradition or outward observances, and 

3 3. The who regarded those which had been re- 
Puritans, tained as rags and relics of Popery. During 
their exile in the reign of Mary, the Puritans, as they 
afterwards came to be called, learned from the disciples 
of Calvin, the great French teacher of Geneva, a special 
system of doctrine and discipline ; a system in which the 
heart and soul were sustained by the intellectual appre- 
ciation of theological truths, rather than by the outward 
actions of the body. 

The Puritans were not likely to find a friend in Eliza- 
beth, when, after her sister's death, she mounted the 
throne to take up the conflict which her fa- 
leaning against ther had waged before her. She herself 
the Puritans. j^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^ scandahzcd her 

bishops by retaining the crucifix in her private chapeL 
But she had another reason for bearing hardly on the 
Puritans. Her strength lay in her headship of the na- 
tional cause. She detested the Pope, not so much be- 
cause he taught the doctrine of transubstantiation and 
worshipped images, as because he claimed to meddle 
with the rules and laws to be observed by Englishmen. 



1553-1603. Reformers and Puritans. 3 

She was anxious to win over as many as possible of 
those whose belief was still the same as that of their fa- 
thers, and she therefore was glad to retain such ceremo- 
nies as might be welcome to this numerous class of her 
subjects. 

If Elizabeth had reasons of her own for maintaining 
the ceremonial forms of the Church, she had also rea- 
sons of her own for maintaining its Episcopal organiza- 
tion. The existence of bishops has been , ^,. 

^5. Eliza- 
defended by ecclesiastical writers on various beth's support 
grounds ; but it was not by ecclesiastical ° piscopacy. 
reasoning that Elizabeth was convinced. She cared very 
little whether bishops were or were not the successors of 
the Apostles. She cared very much that they were ap- 
pointed by herself. They were instruments for keeping 
the clergy in order. Not that they were mere servile 
tools. Many of them were high-minded, devoted men, 
serving the queen all the better because they believed 
that they were serving God at the same time. 

To the thoroughgoing Puritan such a system was 
doubly obnoxious. With Calvin's aid he looked into 
his Bible, and he found nothing there of the „ , ^ . 

° g 6. Puritan 

rule of the queen over the beliefs and wor- opposition to 
ship of Christians. Presbyterianism, so at P^^copacy. 
least the most energetic Puritans held, was the divinely 
appointed model of church government for all time. 
The clergy, assisted by lay elders chosen out of the con- 
gregation, were to be supreme over all ecclesiastical 
matters. 

Proud of her ancient crown, proud of her advocacy 
of the rights of the laity against Presbyter and Pope 
alike, Elizabeth sternly resisted the Puritan 
flood. Year after year the tide, in spite of \^- .9''°^^^ °* 

■' ' ^ Puritanism 

all her efforts, seemed to mount. As long 



4 Puritans and House of Commons. 1 5 5 8- 1 603. 

as the struggle with Rome was hot, as long as plots for 
the assassination of the queen were matters of daily 
talk, and the presence of a Spanish fleet in English har- 
bors, and of Spanish veterans upon English soil, was 
regarded as within the limits of possibility, so long large 
numbers of men who were in earnest in the quarrel at- 
tached themselves to that form of Protestantism v/hich 
was most opposed to the system which they combated. 

During the last years of Elizabeth's reign the waves 

of external conflict lulled themselves to sleep. When 

once the Armada had been shattered by 

3 8. Pacific ten- „ , . , , i , i • i /• 

dencies in Eng- English cannon-shot and by the wmds of 
^^^^' heaven, a calmer, milder spirit prevailed 

amongst the conquerors. To combat Spain and the Pope 
ceased to be the first thought of Englishmen. The 
thought of internal reforms, of wise guidance of the na- 
tion which had been saved, came into the foremost 
place. Each party had learned something from the 
other. If the bishops continued to oppose Calvin's sys- 
tem of church government, they gave their warm ad- 
herence to his theology. Large numbers of Puritans 
abandoned their Presbyterian theories, and were ready 
to submit to the Episcopal constitution, if only they could 
be allowed to omit certain ceremonies which they re- 
garded as superstitious, of which the use of the surplice 
was the most important. 

These prognostics of peace with which Elizabeth's reign 
closed were not confined to England. An observer of 
the course of continental politics might 
dencie^s^on th^' have been excused for thinking that the 
Continent. ^^^^ ^^ religious wars were drawing to an 

end. In 1598 Spain, by the peace of Vervins, had with- 
drawn from its attempt to meddle in the affairs of France 
and had acknowledged the legitimacy of the tolerant 



155S-1603. Refo7'nters and Puritans. 5 

monarchy of Henry IV. . The Dutch Netherlanders 
were still holding out in their noble struggle against 
Spanish oppression, and it seemed likely that here too 
Spain would retire exhausted from the contest. In Ger- 
many the existing settlement which assigned certain 
territories to one rehgion or the other had not been seri- 
ously contested. On the whole the prospects of the 
approach of peace after the long religious wars were 
brighter than they had been for many a weary year. 

In England, a broad and tolerant disposition made 
itself conspicuous in the highest literature of the day. 
No theological controversialist ever had so , ^ , 

° § 10. Tole- 

wise a horror of strife as Hooker, the author ranee of lUera- 
of the Ecclesiastical Polity, or was so ready 
to teach that truth and wisdom must be sought in a reve- 
rent study of spiritual and moral laws, rather than in any 
form of words which might be upheld as a standard of 
party. He strikes up the swords of the combatants as 
the herald of peace. " This unhappy controversy," are 
the very first words which he utters, " about the received 
ceremonies and discipline of the Church of England, 
which hath so long time withdrawn so many of her 
ministers from their principal work, and employed their 
studies in contentious oppositions ; hath by the unnatural 
growth and dangerous fruits thereof, made known to the 
world, that it never received blessing from the Father 
of peace." 

The voice of Hooker was echoed by the voice of 
^acon, statesman, philosopher, essay writer, all in one. 
Looking with eyes of pity on the lot of men, 

. . .r . . , , , , §11. Bacon. 

strivmg, if so it might be, to make them 
happier and wiser by act or speech of his, he had his 
word of warning to utter on this point too : " Therefore," 
he writes, " it is good we return unto the ancient bands 



6 Puritans and House of Commons. 155 8- 1603. 

of unity in the Church of God, which was, one faith, one 
baptism, and not, one hierarchy, one discipline, and that 
we observe the league of Christians, as it is penned by 
our Saviour Christ ; which is in substance of doctrine this. 
All that is not with us is against us ; but in things indif- 
ferent, and but of circumstance this, He that is not 
against us is with us ... as it is excellently alluded by 
that father that noted that Christ's garment was without 
seam, and yet the Church's garment was of divers 
colors, and thereupon set down for a rule. Let there be 
variety in the vesture but not a rent." Hooker's object 
is different from Bacon' s object. Hooker counselled the 
Puritan to give way to the arrangements of the Church. 
Bacon counselled that the arrangements of the Church 
should be modified to suit the wishes of the Puritan. But 
the spirit of moderation was the same in both. 

One too there was, who kept himself aloof from the 

immediate questions of the hour, who had nothing 

directly to say about church worship or 

§12. Shake- church ccrcmonies, who was teaching men 

speare. i • i 

the infinite value of truth and righteousness. 
When Elizabeth died Shakespeare had yet to do his 
highest work, to sink into the depths and rise to the 
heights of the soul of man, till he produced those perfect 
flowers of chastened calm forgiveness, Prospero and 
Hermione. 

Who that looked around therii in the opening years 

of the 17th century would predict aught but the growth 

of peace and toleration ? Why it was that 

§13. Decep- ^ , . , , 

tive forecast the forccast was deceptive ; why there was 
of the future. ^ p^-ii-an Revolution at all, it is the object 
of these pages to tell. 



1 485-1 603. The Tudor Monarchy. 



Section W.— The Tudor Monarchy. 

Political institutions, kings, parliaments, or law-courts 
do not come into existence by accident. 
They are there because they have been able f,^;„So,; I' * 
to do some good to the nation in previous 
stages of its history. As each generation is sure to want 
something done which the last generation did not want, 
there is always a possibility that the persons set in 
authority may resist the change, or may not be compe- 
tent to carry it out. Then some alteration has to be made 
in the institutions under which government is carried on ; 
and if this alteration is very great, and is effected by force, 
it is called a Revolution. 

In every government which does not either maintain 
itself, like an ancient Greek despotism, by the sole pos- 
session of arms amidst an unarmed popula- ^^ Governors 
tion. or like a modern Asiatic despotism, by andgovern- 

j ment. 

the absolute indifference of governors and 
governed alike to any change at all, two things are re- 
quisite, if it is to maintain its existence. In the first place 
there must be some way in which the people who are gov- 
erned make their rulers understand what sort of changes 
they want, and what sort of changes they refuse to admit. 
In the second place there must be some man or some select 
body of men who have wisdom and practical skill to effect 
the changes desired in a right way. All the popular applause 
in the world will not save from ruin a foolish governor who 
disregards the laws of nature, and the most consummate 
wisdom will not save from ruin a governor who tries to 
force a people to changes which they detest. 

This is true even if there be no constitutional system 
in existence at all. In Russian history the Czar who 



8 Puritans a?id House of Com7nofis. 1485-1603. 

does not satisfy his subjects is assassinated. 
g 3. Modern con- -pj^g object of our modem constitutional 

arrangements is that the influence of the 
popular wishes and the influence of practical ability in 
the governors should be brought to bear upon one 
another by argument and discussion and not by violence. 
In the Middle Ages violence was often appealed to. 
Edward II., Richard II., Henry VI. were dethroned and 
„ ,, ,. , murdered. Still the rule was not violence 

g 4. Mediaeval 

constitution- but agreement. In every department of the 
* ^''^' state the co-operation of the king and his 

officials with the popular voice was regarded as the es- 
sential condition of what our ancestors well called the 
commonwealth, the word wealth then signifying general 
well-being, and not mere riches. King and Parliament 
must join in the making of new laws and in the raising 
of new taxes. A judge appointed by the king must join 
with a popular jury in the condemnation of a criminal 
or in the settlement of a quarrel about the rights of pro- 
perty. The king and officers appointed by the king 
commanded the armed force of the nation. But the 
armed force was not a standing army separate from the 
people, but a force composed of the able-bodied inhabi- 
tants of the country who would refuse to march on an 
unpopular service. 

Such in the main was the government of England till 
towards the end of the fifteenth century. Then special 

circumstances occurred which made it neces- 
!,?"theTo?uuy. s^^y ^^^t ^^^ zxoy^xv should be clothed for a 

time with extraordinary powers. Under the 
feeble government of Henry VI. the great and powerful 
nobility preyed upon the weakness of their neighbors. 
Juries were bribed or bullied by the rich land-owner to 
give verdicts according to his pleasure. Men weremur- 



1 485-1 603. The Tudor Monarchy. 9 

dered in the public roads, and justice was not to be had. 
Peaceful homes were besieged and sacked by rival 
claimants to property. Legislation was decided not by 
the free vote of an elected Parliament, but by the victory 
or defeat of armies. The strong government of the 
Yorkist kings, succeeded by the far stronger government 
of the Tudors, was the answer to the national demand 
that the lawless nobility should be incapacitated from 
doing further mischief, Henry VIII., whatever his moral 
character may have been, did the work thoroughly, and 
left but little in this way to be accomplished by his 
daughter. 

Before the depression of the nobility was completely 
effected, the struggle with Rome was begun. Fresh 
powers were needed by the crown, if it was 
to avert the risk of foreign invasion, to de- \^- '^}t^l^^^' 

° gle with Rome. 

tect plots at home, and to maintain order 
amongst a people large numbers of which were dis- 
affected. Thus a second reason was added for allowing 
the sovereign to act independently of those constitutional 
restraints which had hitherto counted for so much. 

In almost every department of government the crown 
was thus enabled to arrogate to itself powers unknown 
in earlier times. In taxation, though it was , ^ 

.„ -, , , .... g 7. Increasing 

Still understood to be a constitutional prin- powers of the 
ciple that Parliament alone could grant "°^"- 
those direct payments of money which were called sub- 
sidies, means had been found by which the crown could 
evade the control of Parliament. People were asked 
sometimes to give money, sometimes to lend it, and 
sometimes the money thus lent was not repaid. Imposi- 
tions were also laid without the consent of Parliament 
on a few articles of commerce impqrted, though this was 
not done to any great extent, Qn the whole, however, 
C 



lo Puritans and Hous.e of Conimo7is. 1485-1603. 

Elizabeth was much more careful to avoid giving offence 
to her subjects by irregular demands of money than her 
father and grandfather had been. The chief field in 
which the crown encroached upon the nation was in 
matters of judicature. The struggle against the nobles 
and the struggle against the papacy each left its mark 
on the judicial system in a court which judged without 
the intervention of a jury. The first produced the Court 
of Star Chamber. The second produced the Court of 
High Commission. 

The Court of Star Chamber was in Elizabeth's time 
composed of the whole of the Privy Council, together 

with the two Chief Justices. Its right to 
of Star Cham- judgc was foundcd partly on old claims of 

the Privy Council, partly on an act of Parlia- 
ment made in the beginning of the reign of Henry VII. 
It could not adjudge any man to lose his life ; but it 
might fine and imprison, and in case of libels and other 
offences of the like kind, it asserted a right to put a man 
in the pillory and to cut off his ears. The court had 
done good service in punishing rich and powerful offen- 
ders whom juries would have been afraid to convict, and 
long after Elizabeth's reign, when it was no longer 
needed to keep down the nobility, it was much resorted 
to by persons whose cases were too intricate for an 
ordinary jury to unravel. There were those, too, who 
held it to be a good thing that there should be a court 
able to do justice against criminals who might not have 
sinned against the letter of the law, and who might con- 
sequently escape if they were brought before the ordinary 
courts. It may fairly be said to have served a useful 
purpose as long as the crown and the nation walked in 
harmony. But if the crown were to go one way, and the 
nation to go another, a court completely under the influ- 



1485-1603. 'I'he Tudor Monarchy. n 

ence of the crown might easily be used against the nation 
which it was intended to serve. 

The Court of High Commission was a kind of Eccle- 
siastical Star Chamber. It was founded by Elizabeth, 
partly on the strength of an Act of Parlia- , ^, ^ 

^ ^ . ° , . g 9. The Court 

ment empowermg her to correct abuses m otHighCom- 
the Church, partly on the strength of her "^'^^^°°- 
claim to have reasserted for the royal authority the 
supreme governorship over the Church. It was com- 
posed of clergy and laymen appointed by the queen, 
and was able to fine and imprison as well as to degrade 
and suspend clergymen from their functions. Here too, 
as in the case of the Star Chamber, much would depend 
on the way in which the court exercised its powers. 
Parliament had intended that they should be used mainly 
against the spread of Roman Catholic doctrines. Eliza- 
beth, however, used them chiefly against the Puritans, 
and if Puritanism came to be really accepted by the 
people and to be opposed by the crown, it would find the 
Court of High Commission a real hindrance to its devel- 
opment. 

During the i6th century therefore, all the changes 
which had taken place in the institutions of the country 
had all been in favor of the crown. But the rise of the 
royal power cannot be measured merely by 
the change of courts and laws. Royalty had ^ ^°- '^^^ '■pT^^ 

° -" -' prerogative. 

come to be regarded as the centre of the 
national life, as the vindicator of the national rights 
against the injustice of the nobility at home and the 
aggression of the Pope and his allies from abroad. The 
personal flattery with which Elizabeth was surrounded 
was but the extravagant echo of the wiser judgment of 
her contemporaries. Nothing is more instructive on this 
head than the infinitely small part played by Parliament 



12 Puritans and House of Commons. 1 485-1 603. 

in Shakespeare's historical dramas written during the 
closing years of Elizabeth's life. He narrates the for- 
tunes of King John without the slightest allusion to 
Magna Charta What interests him is the personal 
struggle of men of various qualities and powers. In 
Richard IL and Henry IV. he shows what misery and 
turmoil follow, if once the legal ground of hereditary 
succession is abandoned. He makes his Richard say 
that :— 

Not all the water in the rough rude sea 
Can wash the balm from an anointed liing. 

But Shakespeare's loyalty is to England first, to the king 
only secondarily, for England's sake. He sees the mis- 
chief which Richard's fall had caused. But his sympa- 
thies go with Henry IV., the self-sustained practical ruler. 
Can we doubt that if he had lived half a century later, he 
would have mourned for Charles, but that his intelligence 
would have decided for Cromwell ? 

As long as Elizabeth lived she was the representative 
of the nation in the highest sense. With all her faults, 

and she had many, she sympathized with 
^f Fi'^vf'^h"'^^ the people which she ruled. One day, we 

are told, she asked a lady how she contrived 
to retain the affection of her husband. The lady replied 
that " she had confidence in her husband's understand- 
ing and courage, well founded on her own steadfastness 
not to offend or thwart, but to cherish and obey, whereby 
she did persuade her husband of her own affection, and 
in so doing did command his." " Go to, go to, mistress," 
answered the queen ; "you are wisely bent, I find. After 
such sort do I keep the good-will of all my husbands, my 
good people ; for if they did not rest assured of some 
special love towards them, they would not readily yield 
me such good obedience." 



i6o4. The Hampton Court Cofiference. 13 

Would Elizabeth's successor be able to do the same ? 
If he could not, the House of Commons was there to 
give voice to the national desires, and to 
claim that power which is the inevitable re- \l?- "^^^ "^^ 
suit of services rendered to the nation. Such 
a change could hardly be effected without a contest. 
The strength which had been imparted to the crown that 
it might accomplish the objects aimed at by the nation 
would, if their paths diverged, be an obstacle in the 
course of the nation which only force could overcome. 

Section III. — The Hampton Court Conference and the 
proposed Union with Scotland. 

The mere fact that Elizabeth's successor was a Scotch- 
man was against him. James I. was hneally descended 
from Henry VII. but he had not grown up 
in England, had not been surrounded by f::^- ^^3- §i- 
Englishmen and habituated to English ways 
of thinking. His own mental powers were by no means 
inconsiderable. He usually knew better than other peo- 
ple what sort of thing it was desirable to do. But he had 
a great aversion to taking trouble of any kind, and he 
shrank from the constant supervision of details which is 
absolutely necessary if the most promising plans are to 
ripen into fruit. At the same time he was most impa- 
tient of opposition. He believed himself to be authorized 
to rule England, partly by his birth, partly by some 
divine right connected with his birth ; but infinitely more 
by his own superiority in wisdom. He liked to see ques- 
tions brought to the test of argument, but was apt to 
insult those who refused to see things in the hght in 
which he saw them. His Scotch experience was espe- 
cially likely to bias him in any question in which Puritan- 



14 Puritans and House of Commons. 1604. 

ism was concerned. Puritan ascendancy, which was an 
object of fear in England, had been a fact in Scotland, 
and James was not likely to forget the day when a Puri- 
tan minister had plucked him by the sleeve and had 
addressed him in public as " God's silly vassal." 

On January 14, 1604, nearly ten months after his ac- 
cession, James summoned the leading Puritan ministers to 
meet him at Hampton Court in the presence 
Hampton ^f the principal bishops, in order that he 

Court Con- - might learn what ecclesiastical changes were 

fereiice. '^ ° 

desired by the Puritans. Some of these 
changes proposed by them were so far adopted that they 
were referred to commissioners to put into shape for 
legislation in the coming Parliament. But on the main 
question James was obdurate. The rules and orders of 
the Church were to be observed without relaxation. It 
was not to be left open to any clergyman to decide 
whether he would wear a surplice or a black gown, 
whether he would make the sign of the cross in baptisnj 
whether he would give the ring in marriage. 

It cannot be said that James' decision was entirely 
unreasonable. If every minister is to be allowed to take 
„ , his own course, he may possibly give offence 

§3. Importance -^ '- •' ° 

of James' de- to his Congregation by omitting some cere- 
mony to which they are accustomed, as well 
as by adopting some ceremony to which they are unac- 
customed. But an argument which would deserve con- 
siderable weight where any dissatisfied members of a 
congregation are at liberty to withdraw from it, and 
to establish their own worship apart, is much less valid 
when it is applied to a state of things in which but one 
form of worship is allowed for a whole nation. The idea 
of separate religious bodies each worshipping as they 
think right would have been repelled by all parties in 



1604. Proposed Union with Scotland. 15 

James' reign, and the only question was whether an iron 
rule was to be laid down by which all preachers, how- 
ever persuasive they may have been in the cause of 
religion, were to be condemned to silence if they refused 
to conform to it. 

Unhappily James was not content with announcing his 
decision. Taking fire at the mention of the word " pres- 
byter " he blazed up into anger. " A Scot- 
tish presbytery," he said " agreeth as well violent lan- 
with a monarchy as God and the devil. s^age. 
Then Jack and Tom and Will and Dick shall meet, and 
at their pleasures censure me and my council, and all 
our proceedings. . . Stay, I pray you, for one seven years, 
before you demand that from me, and if then you find 
me pursy and fat, and my windpipes stuffed, I will per- 
haps hearken to you ; for let that government be once 
up, I am sure I shall be kept in breath ; then shall we 
all of us have work enough. . . . Until you find that I 
grow lazy, let that alone." 

If the Puritans were irritated by the king's language, 
the bishops were too well satisfied with the substance of 
his reply to quarrel with its form. One of 
their number went so far as to declare that |5- Effect of 

his language. 

his Majesty spoke by the inspiration of the 

Spirit of God ! The Puritans left his presence bitterly 

disappointed. 

The House of Commons which met on March 19 was 
no assembly of Puritans. But it wished that the conces- 
sions refused by Tames should be granted „ , „„ „ 

, ^ . •'. •* , , ^ ., , ?6. ThePar- 

to the Puritans, in order that every possible liamentfor 
Christian influence might be brought to bear 
on the sin and vice around. 

The Church question was not the only seed of division 
between the King and the Commons. He was anxious 



1 6 Puritans and House of Commons. 1610. 



^ 7. Proposed 
Ur " 



to bring about a close union between Eng- 



inion with land and Scotland, and he was deeply 
annoyed when he found that the House was 
so prejudiced and ignorant as to see all kinds of imagi- 
nary dangers in his beneficent design. A state of feeling 
grew up in which agreement on lesser matters was im- 
possible, and when Parliament was prorogued the schism 
between King and Commons had already begun. 

If the king had not Parliament on his side, he had 
Convocation. That clerical body was capable of mak- 
ing canons, that is to say, laws binding on 
Canons of the clergy though not on the laity, and it 

^ °^' now enforced upon the clergy that unifor- 

mity of ceremonies which the king desired. After the 
prorogation the new canons were put in force. About 
three hundred clergymen were expelled from their liv- 
ings for refusing to conform, and a compulsory peace was 
imposed on the English Church. 

James had no immediate danger to fear. The Puri- 
tans formed but a minority amon-gst the clergy and laity, 

„ _, and the ease with which so harsh a mea- 

g 9. The 

Puritans in sure was Carried out is strong evidence that 
opposi ion. ^^ existing ceremonies were at least tacitly 
accepted by the mass of the people. But there was a feel- 
ing abroad that the expulsion of these men was injurious 
to the cause of religion, and if events came to make the 
crown otherwise unpopular, Puritanism would be a force 
added to the side of its adversaries. 

For six years the work of enforcing conformity went 
on. In 1610 Abbot was appointed Archbishop of Can- 
terbury. He himself conformed to the 
^ ^ uV^^^°'-^ Church ceremonial, but he was a lax disci- 

arcnbishopric. 

plinarian , and he sympathized to some extent 
with the feelings of the Puritans. Under his manage- 



i6o6. The New Impositions. 17 

ment the rule of the Church was less strictly exercised. 
Here and there the surplice was dropped, and portions 
of the service omitted at the discretion of the minister. 
But it was one thing to allow liberty within certain limits 
by a fixed law : it was another thing to allow liberty by 
the mere remissness of one who ought to have been the 
guardian of the law. What one archbishop allowed 
might easily be forbidden by another. 

Meanwhile the question of the union with Scotland 
dragged slowly on, and it was only in 1607 that the Com- 
mons made one or two unimportant conces- 
sions. Though they professed their readi- g'n.'setde- 
ness to examine the question at a future time, Un?on°ques^- 
James preferred cutting the knot as far as he *'°"- 
was able to do so. The Judges were either less amenable 
than the Commons to popular prejudice, or were ready, 
under any circumstances, to give effect to the doctrine 
of their law-books. They decided that all Scotchmen 
born since his accession to the English throne were natu- 
ralized Englishmen. All hopes of obtaining any closer 
union between the two nations were abandoned for the 
present. 

Section IV. — The New Impositions and the Great 
Contract. 

Besides the great questions of conformity in the 
Church and of union with Scotland, others had been 
raised which might have been settled with- a.d. 1606. 
out difficulty if the crown and the House of money difficul- 
Commons had been agreed on more im- ^^^^• 
portant matters. A feeling of irritation was daily grow- 
ing, and there was one way in which the irritation of 
viie Commons could easily find expression. The king 
tvas in want of a permanent supply of money, and un- 



1 8 llie Puritans and House of Co77imons. 1606. 

less all the traditions of the English constitution were 
to be reversed, he could not have it without a grant from 
the House of Commons. 

It was not wholly his fault. Elizabeth had carried on 
an expensive war upon a miserably insufficient revenue, 
and even if James had been as parsimonious 
ufthefinan-'°" as she had been, he could hardly have 
*^^^- avoided a large deficit. As a married man, 

his household expenses were certain to be more than 
those of an unmarried queen. At his first coming he 
had no notion that he had any reason to be parsimo- 
nious at all. After his experience of Scottish poverty, 
the resources of the Enghsh exchequer seemed to be 
boundless, and he flung pensions and gifts with an un- 
sparing hand amongst his favorites. The result was that 
before he had been on the throne four years an expen- 
diture of about 500,000/. a year had to be provided for 
out of a revenue of about 320,000/. a year. 

Under these circumstances it was difficult to resist the 
temptation of getting money in any way which would 
not involve immediate risk. Just at this 
on Bite's"*^''' time the temptation was offered. At the be- 
*^^^^- ginning of every reign customs duties upon 

goods imported and exported were granted to the crown 
by Parliament under the name of tonnage and pound- 
age. But besides these Mary and Ehzabeth had de- 
manded certain small payments called impositions with- 
out any Parliamentary grant. James had added further 
impositions on currants and tobacco. In 1606 a mer- 
chant named Bate refused to pay the imposition on cur- 
rants. The case was brought before the Court of Ex- 
chequer, and the Judges decided that the king had a 
right by law to set impositions on merchandise without 
any grant from the Parliament. It is generally allowed 



loio. The New Impositions. 19 

now that the Judges were wrong. But the fact that they 
had so decided was of the utmost importance. The 
king; could always say that he might raise as much mo- 
ney in this way as he pleased, and would still be keep- 
ing within the law. 

In 1608 advantage was taken of this decision. New 
impositions were laid on merchandise to the amount of 
70.000/. But even this would not fill up a . „ 

' ' _ ^ A. D. IDob. 

yearly deficit of 180,000/., and in 1610 ? 4. The new 
Parliament was asked to come to the aid of ™p°^' ^°"^- 
the crown. 

A bargain was accordingly entered into — the Great 
Contract, as it was called — by which the king was to 
surrender certain harsh and antiquated ^^^ Qx&2x 
rights, and was to receive in return a reve- Contract. 
nue equal to 200,000/. a year. But before 
the bargain was actually completed, the question of the 
new impositions was discussed, and the House of Com- 
mons had no difficulty in deciding them to be illegal. 
But a resolution of the Commons, v/ithout the assent of 
the king and the House of Lords, could not make that 
illegal which the judges had pronounced to be legal. 
James voluntarily remitted some of the impositions to 
the value of 20,000/, and a little later he offered to 
surrender his right to raise any more, if Parliament 
would confirm his hold upon what he had already got. 

Before this agreement could be embodied in an Act 
of Parliament, the time for the summer vacation had ar- 
rived. It was resolved that there should be , , ' , 

^ 6. Breach 

another session in the winter to carry out between the 

. , tTTi ii • i king and his 

the arrangement. When the wmter came, first Parlia- 
the temper of the two parties had altered "^^"'^• 
for the worse. The members of Parliament had talked 
over the matter with their constituents, and had come 



20 The Puritans and Hotise of Commons. 1612. 

to the conclusion that they were asked to give too much. 
The king had talked over the matter with his ministers, 
and had come to the conclusion that he would receive 
too little. Under these circumstances no agreement 
was possible. The king dissolved his first Parliament 
in disgust. He retained a heavy debt and a large de- 
ficit. He retained, too, the right acknowledged to be 
his by the Judges, of levying any customs duties he 
chose by his sole will and pleasure. 

Good advice was not wanting to James. Bacon, who 
had told him plainly what he ought to do with the Puri- 
tans, told him plainly what he ought to do 
§ 7. Bacon's with his financial difficulties. It was a mis- 
advice. ^^^^ Bacon argued, to bargain with the 
House of Commons. If they were asked to take part 
in a bargain, they would naturally try to get as much as 
they could for themselves, and to give as little as they 
could to the king. The thing to be remembered was 
that the king and the Parliament were members of one 
body with common interests and common work. It was 
for the king to rule well and wisely, without bargaining 
for anything in return. If he did this, if he secured the 
love and esteem of his subjects, he would have no diffi- 
culty in obtaining from thern all the money for which he 
could fitly wish. 

Bacon's advice was not taken. In 1614 another Par- 
liament was summoned, and another bargain was 
opened. The king did not offer to surrender 
|"8"The^Par- as much as he had offered before, and he 
idiT"*^ °^ ^^^ ^°^ ^^^ ^°^ ^^ much money in return. 

But his principle of action was the same, 
and the result was the same. The House took the ques- 
tion of impositions into consideration before they would 
grant a penny, and again declared that the king had no 



1603. Gunpowder Plot. 21 

right to levy them. James at once dissolved Parliament 
after a sitting of a few weeks. It produced no statute, 
and was consequently known in history as the Addled 
Parliament. 



* CHAPTER II. 

THE SPANISH ALLIANCE. 

Section I. — Gunpowder Plot. 

The relations between James and the Puritans were to 
some extent modified after the appointment of Abbot to 
the archbishopric. Some connivance was 

'■ . A. D. 1003. 

extended to those of the nonconformists |i. Relations 
who did not make themselves too obtrusive. jainLTand the 
The relations between James and the Ca- ^-^^thohcs. 
tholics, on the other hand, had some time before Ab- 
bot's appointment become harsher than they were at the 
beginning of the reign. 

By the Elizabethan legislation, the Recusants, as the 
Catholics who refused to go to church were called, were 
in evil case. The richest amongst them 
were liable to a fine of 20/. a month. Land- lusancy^ laws. 
owners who coiild not afford to pay this 
were deprived of two-thirds of their estates. Persons 
who had no lands might have the furniture of their 
houses seized and sold for the benefit of the exchequer. 
Any one of these men was liable to excommunication, 
and an excommunicated man could be sent to prison 
without any further formality. To say mass as a priest, 
or to assist a priest in doing so, was punishable with 
death. Of course, these harsh penalties were consider- 



22 The Spanish Alliance. 1604. 

ably modified in practice. But every man who did not 
come to church knew that they were suspended over his 
head, perhaps to fall without a moment's warning. 

Before his accession, James, being anxious to secure 
adherents, had given hopes of lightening the burdens 
which pressed upon the Catholics. Not long after his 

arrival in England he informed the principal 
promises to CathoHcs that, as long as they behaved as 
c=. jQyg^j subjects, the fines would no longer be 
exacted. But he still had reason for disquietude. There 
had been plots and rumors of plots, and the number of 
the recusants had largely increased as soon as the legal 
penalties had been suspended. In February 1604 James 
banished all priests from England, though as yet he took 
no active measures against the laity. 

There were Catholics in England who were ready to 
dare anything for the triumph of their Church. As soon 

as the proclamation for the banishment of 
§4° Formation the priests appeared, Robert Catesby, a man 
of the gunpow- steeped in plots and conspiracies, proposed to 

one or two friends to blow up King, Lords 
and Commons with gunpowder. Guy Fawkes, a cool 
and daring soldier, was sent for from Flanders to assist 
in the execution of the scheme. Others were by degrees 
admitted to the secret, and there can be lictle doubt that 
two or three priests were of the number. They took a 
house adjoining the House of Lords, and proceeded to 
dig through the wall, in order that they might place their 
barrels of powder under the floor before the opening of 
the next session. The wall was nine feet thick, and after 
some weeks' work they had made but little way. Water 
flowed in and hindered their operations. Superstitious fan- 
cies gathered thickly round V.em, and they imagined that 
they were accompanied in th oir labors by unearthly sounds. 



1605. Gunpowder Plot. 23 

In the spring of 1605 James, frightened at the increase 
in the number of recusants, put the laws again in force 
against the Roman Cathohc laity. The 
conspirators felt a fresh spur to their enter- ^ 5^Enfo°ce- 
prise. At the same time an accident relieved ment of the 

* penal laws. 

them from further trouble. An adjoining 
cellar, reaching under the House of Lords without any 
intervening wall, was found to be for hire. It was taken 
in the name of one of the conspirators. The powder 
which they needed was safely lodged in it, and was 
covered with fagots in order to conceal it from any 
chance visitant. All that remained was to prepare for 
the insurrection which was to follow after the fatal deed 
had been accomplished. 

To hire a cellar and to buy a few barrels of powder, 
was an exploit within the means of the conspirators. 
More money than they could command was 
needed to prepare for an insurrection. Three 2^- "The plot 
rich Catholics were informed of the project, 
and their purses were laid under contribution. One of 
them, anxious for the safety of a relative who was a 
member of the House of Lords, contrived that informa- 
tion should be given to the government in such a way 
that the conspirators might be themselves warned in time 
to fly. 

The conspirators received the warning, but they re- 
fused to believe it to be true. Parliament was to be 
opened on November 5. On the night of 
the Ath Fawkes was seized watching- over ? 7- Failure of 

^ ^ the plot. 

the powder barrels. The next morning the 
other plotters were flying for their lives. Some were 
killed before they could be taken. Others were captured 
and died a traitor's death. 

The detected conspiracy was fatal to the hopes of the 



24 The Spanish Alliance. 1617. 

Catholics. The laws against them were 
§8, Result of j-Qade harsher than ever, and the fines were 

the conspiracy. 

more unremittingly exacted. The door of 
mercy seemed closed against them for many a year. 

Section II. — James I. and Spain. 

The detection of the Gunpowder Plot rekindled the 
old feelings of antipathy against Spain as well as against 

the Catholics at home. James, if carried 
I r. Unpopu- away for a moment, did not fully share in 
larity of Spain, ^j^^g^ feehngs. If Only he could be assured 
that his authority in England was in no danger, his 
natural aversion to cruelty would make him shrink from 
persecution, and he was inclined to look with favor upon 
a Spanish alliance which might help him to prevent a 
fresh outbreak of war in Europe. 

But he was not content with offering to join Spain in 
keeping the peace. In 161 1 he proposed to marry his 

son to a Spanish infanta. In 1614, after the 
|"2^" Spanish dissolution of Parliament, the proposal was 
°osed^^^ ^'^°' repeated. Money he must have, and if he 

could not get money from Parliament he 
would get it from the King of Spain as a daughter's por- 
tion. He imagined that he would not be pressed to give 
more to the English Catholics in return than a conni- 
vance at their worship in private houses, a concession 
which might be withdrawn at his pleasure if it became 
dangerous. In 1617 the negotiation was formally opened, 
the Spaniards all the while intending to refuse the hand 
of their princess in the end unless they could obtain the 
conditions which they thought sufficient to secure the 
conversion of England. 

James' want of money led to another act which has 
weighed upon his memory even more deeply than his 



1617. James I. and Spain, 25 

Spanish alliance. Sir Walter Raleigh, sea- 
rover, statesman, colonizer, and historian, g '3. Raleigh's 
had entangled himself in an inexplicable ™''^^' 
way in a plot soon after James' accession, and had been 
condemned to death. Reprieved upon the scaffold, he 
had been left in the Tower for many years, where he 
had solaced himself by writing the History of the World. 
But his thoughts were far away across the Atlantic waves 
amidst the forests of America, and he had to tell of a 
golden mine on the banks of the Orinoco rich enough 
to make the fortune of a king, James listened half in- 
credulously. But there were those about him who wished 
him to give ear to the tale, — men to whom the friendship 
of Spain was hateful, and who wished to cut loose the 
ties which were binding England to the Cathohc king, 
and to see once more the rovers of Plymouth and Barn- 
staple bringing home rich prizes taken in Spanish 
seas. 

James had no wish to break with Spain ; but he had 
an eye to the gold. He made Raleigh promise not to 
go near Spanish territory, and explained to 
him that if he touched a Spaniard he must pedUiontT* 
answer for it with his head. Raleigh, freed <-^"»ana. 
from prison, hastened to the Orinoco. He firmly be- 
lieved that if he could only get the gold, he would not 
be held to his engagements. He sent his men up the 
river without distinct orders to avoid fighting. They 
seized and plundered a Spanish town. The golden mine 
eluded their search. Raleigh's eldest son was killed in 
the attack. Heart-broken at the failure, he proposed to 
his captains to lie in wait for the Spanish treasure ships, 
which would furnish gold enough to a bold assailant. 
His captains refused to follow him, and he had to come 
back to England with nothing in his hands. James sent 
D 



26 The Spanish Alliance. 1615. 

him to the scaffold for a fault which he ought never to 
have given him the chance of committing. 

Everything to which James put his hand was marred 
in the execution. His own life was virtuous and upright. 
But he contrived to surround himself with 
g 5. kise^of those who were neither virtuous nor upright. 
Somerset. Placed amongst men who were anxious to 

drag him in ways in which he did not think fit to go, he 
hit upon the plan of educating some young man who 
would be his companion in amusements and his private 
secretary in business, who would be the dispenser of his 
patronage, and would, above all, save him the thankless 
task of saying No, when favors were asked. The first 
whom he chose was Robert Carr, a young Scotchman, 
who seemed to possess the needful qualities, and who 
finally became Earl of Somerset. Somerset assisted 
James in the negotiations with Spain which preceded the 
open avowal of the negotiations for the Spanish marriage. 
But Somerset's head was turned by his advancement. 
He fell in love with the wife of the Earl of Essex, and 
married her, after procuring a divorce under circum- 
stances which called down upon her the reprobation of 
honest men. Not long afterwards a murder which had 
been committed was traced to her contrivance, and her 
husband was vehemently suspected of assisting her. 
Both were brought to trial, and sentenced to death. Both 
received pardon from the king, though their position at 
court was ruined, 

Somerset was succeeded by George Villiers, soon after- 
wards created Earl, and then Marquis of Buckingham. 
In natural ability and gentleness of disposi- 
§6. Advance- tion Buckingham was far superior to Somer- 
Bucking- ^^^- ^^ ^^ possible that if he had risen by 

^in- slow degrees he might have done good ser- 



i6i6. James I. and Spain. 27 

vice to the commonwealth. But so sudden a rise was 
enough to spoil any one. It is true that for many a year 
James kept the decision of political questions in his own 
hands. But any one who wanted advancement at court 
must come to Buckingham. Gentlemen who wished to 
be made barons, and barons who wished to be made 
earls ; lawyers who aspired to be judges, and judges who 
aspired to a more lucrative employment in the adminis- 
tration of the finances or in the actual government of 
the state, must bow down to Buckingham and propitiate 
his favor. Wealth poured in to support his dignity, 
and in a year or two the youth who could at one time 
scarcely afford to buy himself a new suit of clothes, was 
with one exception the richest peer in England. No 
wonder his head was turned. No wonder he expected 
submission full and complete to every fancy which might 
pass through his brain. He had kinsmen, too, to be re- 
membered as well as himself, a mother to be made much 
of at court, brothers to be made peers, portionless nieces 
and cousins to be married to men who were aspirants for 
office. Foolishly compliant as James was in this, there 
was a method in it all. He wanted to shake himself 
loose from the trammels of the House of Lords, as he 
wanted to shake himself loose from the trammels of the 
House of Commons, and he hoped that the new peers 
who owed their exaltation to the good word of Bucking- 
ham, and sometimes to the sums of money which they 
paid over to Buckingham or to the king himself, would 
steadily give him their votes forever after. 

James' internal government in these years was better 
in intention than in its results. He wished to do right to 
all men. Case after case arose in which o ■^^^^^. 
some high officer of state was found guilty internal go- 

° ^ ■> vernment. 

of wrong-doing, and James made no attempt 



28 2^he Spanish Alliance, 1616. 

to shelter any one from the consequences of his fault. 
But there were not a few who naturally thought that the 
remedy was as bad as the disease, and that the system 
which compelled the officers of state to hang upon the 
favor or the smile of an inexperienced youth was_ itself 
the hot-bed of corruption. 

James' conception of the limits of his own authority 
was in the main the same as that of Elizabeth. He had 
sworn, he said, in a speech which he deli- 
l^s.^His view vered on a solemn occasion in 1616, to do 
authoriT" justice and to maintain the law, " the com- 

mon law of the land, according to which 
the king governs, and by which the people are gov- 
erned." He had, he added, " as far as human frailty 
might permit him, or his knowledge inform him," kept 
his oath. If the law was uncertain, uncertainties must 
be removed by Parliament. But it was his business to 
see that the Judges did not introduce novelties out of 
their own heads. The prerogative of the crown was in 
this respect regarded by James as giving him authority 
to control the self-will of the Judges. " This," he said, 
" is a thing regal and proper to a king, to keep every 
court within its true bounds." Then, waxing warm, he 
added words which seem rather startling at present : "As 
for the absolute prerogative of the crown, that is no sub- 
ject for the tongue of a lawyer, nor is it lawful to be 
disputed. It is atheism and blasphemy to dispute what 
God can do ; good Christians content themselves with 
His will revealed in His word ; so it is presumption and 
high contempt in a subject to dispute what a king can 
do, or say that a king cannot do this or that ; but rest in 
that which is the king's will revealed in his law." 

It is easy to look upon these words as a mere absurdity. 
Yet not only are they worthy of consideration, but they 



i6i7- James I. and Spain. 29 

will be found to furnish the key to much of ^ „ r 

•' , § 9. How far 

the subsequent history. The fact is that no w^s he in 
nation can be governed by general rules. ^ ^ ""^ '* 
Those rules being the work of fallible human creatures, 
cannot possibly embrace all points of difficulty that may 
arise. When new difficulties come up for settlement there 
must be some living intelligence to meet them, to frame 
new rules, to enlarge the old ones, and to see that per- 
sons entrusted with carrying them out do not misuse 
their authority. With us this living intelligence is looked 
for in Parliament, or in ministers acting in responsibility 
to Parliament, Under the Tudor constitution new rules 
could only be laid down by the combined operation of 
king and Parliament. But it was considered to be the 
king's business to keep the machine of government in 
working order, and to make special provision for tempo- 
rary emergencies, without responsibility to any one. 
James' vague language doubtless implied assumptions 
of a dangerous kind, but in the main he meant no more 
than that the limits to the exercise of this special power 
were in themselves indefinable. The power must be 
used when occasion called it out, and no one could say 
beforehand how it would be right for him to act in any 
given circumstances. 

So far, then, James was but carrying out the system of 
his predecessors. But he forgot that the success of every 
system depends upon the spirit in which it 
is worked. The Tudor sovereigns were rio/wouid 
hungry for popularity, and drew back from keep his "^ ^ 
attempting to realize their dearest wishes if authority? 
they ran counter to the settled desire of the nation. 
James fancied himself above popularity. Puritanism, it 
is true, had for a time ceased to be dangerous. But 
James' foreign policy was such as to try the patience of 



3© The Spanish Alliance. 1618. 

Englishmen. It would be bad enough to throw the force 
of England into the scale against Protestantism abroad, 
but a nearer and more appalling danger was imminent. 
A Spanish marriage for the Prince of Wales meant 
privileges for the English Catholics at home, it meant 
the chance of seeing their numbers so increase through 
the connivance of the court, that they would be able to 
force their will upon the consciences 'of Protestant Eng- 
lishmen, It possibly might mean that the future children 
of the Prince of Wales would be brought up as oppo- 
nents of the belief of Englishmen, and would some day 
be able to use the royal authority in favor of the Church 
of their mother. If Puritanism awoke again from its 
slumbers, and arrayed its powers in opposition to this 
royal authority which James valued so highly, the cause 
must primarily be sought in this unhappy Spanish mar- 
riage upon which he had set his heart. 

Section III. — The Spaniards in the Palatinate. 

In 1618, that which James had long striven to avert 

came to pass. The flames of war broke out in Bohemia, 

and there was every probability that they 

t\ \he^^ would spread far before they were quenched. 

Bohemian 'fhe German States were divided by politi- 

Revolution. , ,.^^ ^^^ .,,,,. 

cal differences ; still more widely by reli- 
gious differences. Whatever form any dispute took in 
Germany was sure to settle down ultimately into a 
quarrel between Catholics and Protestants. This was 
precisely what James disliked, and he did his best to per- 
suade the combatants that they had better not fight about 
religion. He gave plenty of good advice, which those 
who received it never thought of taking. 

Yet after all, it must be remembered that James' ad- 
vice was good in itself. Nothing better could have 



1 619. The Spaniards in the Palatinate. 31 

happened for Europe, then on the verge of ^ ^ ^^^^^^, ^^ 
the horrible Thirty Years' War, than that vice good on 

J the whole. 

the different powers should have allowed a 
well-meaning, disinterested man like James to settle what 
their rights were. But as there was not the least chance 
of this all that he had really to decide on was whether he 
would keep entirely aloof, or whether he ought to inter- 
fere on one side or the other. 

This was precisely what he could not do. He wavered 
from hour to hour. At one moment some violent and- 
unreasonable action on the Catholic side 
would make him think that he ought to un- ?> His inae- 
dertake the defence of the German Protest- 
ants. At another moment some violent and unreasonable- 
action on the Protestant side would make him think that 
he ought to leave the German Protestants to their fate. 
In 1619 his difficulties became still more distracting. 
His son in-law Frederick ruled, as Elector Palatine, over 
the pleasant lands which stretched in a strag- 
gling course from the Moselle to the frontier §^4.^'His son- 
of Bohemia. Frederick, though incapaci- of'sohemla 
tated by his weakness of character from 
taking a leading part in a great political struggle, was 
marked out by his high dignity as the natural leader of 
those German princes who believed a struggle with the 
Roman Catholic powers to be unavoidable. He was now 
chosen King of Bohemia by the Bohemian revolutionists 
in opposition to the Arch-duke Ferdinand, who was al- 
ready legally in posession of that crown. ' Two days 
later Ferdinand was chosen Emperor, and in both ca- 
pacities he called upon the Catholic states to assist him 
against Frederick, whom he naturally stigmatized as a 
mere usurper. 

With little hesitation James came to the conclusion that 



32 The Spanish Alliance. 1620. 

Frederick had no right to Bohemia, and that he could 
give him no assistance there. But what was 
fs.^^olun"' he to do if the Spanish forces, setting out 
pTtfnate^^ from the Netherlands, were to swoop down 
on the Palatinate and to keep it as a pledge 
for the surrender of Bohemia ? On the one hand, if his 
son-in-law had no right to Bohemia, all means were law- 
ful to make him let go his hold. If, on the other hand, 
the Spaniards once established themselves in the Palati- 
nate, it would be difficult to get them out again. The 
solution which called for the least action was always pre- 
ferred by James, and he contented himself with allowing 
a regiment of English volunteers to go to the Palatinate 
under Sir Horace Vere, to be supported by such means 
as Frederick had it in his power to give. 

In the summer of 1620 the blow fell. Whilst Bava- 
rians and Saxons and Imperialists were pouring into 
Bohemia, a well-appointed Spanish force 
IpanTil-ds marched up the Rhine and seized the 

in the Paia- Western Palatinate. Tames was for the mo- 

tmate. -' 

ment stung to resolution by the news. He 
summoned Parliament to enable him to defend the in- 
heritance of his daughter and her children. Before 
Parliament had time to meet, that daughter and her hus- 
band were flying from Bohemia after a crushing defeat 
on the White Hill, outside the walls of Prague. 

When Parliament met, James called upon it for sup- 
plies in order that he might be able to ne- 
gV^Th?^" gotiate with a sword in his hand. But he 
Parliament ^jj^j j^q|- propose to send troops immediately 
into Germany, and the House of Common? 
contented itself with voting a small supply, without bind- 
ing itself for the future. James talked of negotiating, 
and of fighting if negotiation proved useless. The Ger- 



1 62 1. The Spaniards in the Falaiinate. 33 

mans who were nearest the danger thought he ought to 
send an army first and negotiate afterwards. The princes 
aUied with Frederick were discouraged and submitted to 
the Emperor. The King of Denmark, Christian IV., 
who was preparing to come to their aid, was terrified 
when he heard of James' procrastination. " By God." 
he said to the English ambassador, " this business is gone 
too far to think it can be redressed with words only. I 
thank God we hope, with the help of his Majesty of 
Great Britain and the rest of our friends, to give unto the 
Count Palatine good conditions. If ever we do any good 
for the liberty of Germany and religion it is now time." 
James had but words to give, and Christian retired from 
the conflict to wait for better days. 

The House of Commons was out of humor. Its 
members had the feeUng that they were be- , „ ^ 

° •' § 8. Temper 

ing badly led, and yet they were powerless of the 
to secure another leader. They turned oniinons. 
fiercely upon domestic grievances. 

Foremost of these were the monopolies. Partly through 
a wish to encourage home manufactures, partly through 
a fondness for over-regulation of commerce, 
private persons were allowed by the govern- ^|9^ ^^^^ 
ment to possess the sole right of selling 
various articles of trade. One set of persons, for instance, 
was privileged to make all the glass used in England, 
because these persons entered into a compact not to use 
wood in their furnaces, and it was held that the con- 
sumption of wood would shorten the supply of timber for 
the navy. Another set of persons was allowed to make all 
the gold and silver thread used in England, because tkey 
promised to employ only foreign gold and silver in the 
manufacture, and as gold and silver were in those days 
believed exclusively to constitute wealth, it was thought 



34 The Spanish Alliance. 1621. 

to be desirable that English wealth should not go into 
the melting-pot. Besides these monopolies there were 
regulations for the licensing of inns, and fees to be paid 
to the licensers. As these licensers and other persons 
engaged in keeping up the monopolies were always 
friends or dependants of Buckingham, there was a gen- 
eral impression that the courtiers and even the king 
himself made vast sums of money by these proceedings. 
In reality the amount obtained by the courtiers was 
grossly exaggerated, and the king obtained little or noth- 
ing. Still there can be no doubt that, even according to 
the theories of the day, many of these monopolies ought 
never to have been granted, and that, especially in the 
case of the gold and silver thread, very harsh means 
were taken of enforcing the provisions of the grant, some 
of which were undoubtedly in contradiction to the spirit, 
if not to the letter of the law. 

James yielded to the storm, and abandoned the mo- 

nopohes. But behind the feehng against the monopohes 

was an indignation at the traffic in place and 

1 10. General power which was being carried on under the 

corruption. ^ ° 

shadow of Buckingham's protection. The 
Chief Justice of England had recently retired from the 
bench, and had received a more lucrative office as Lord 
Treasurer. " Take care, ray Lord," said Bacon to him, 
drily, as he was going down to Newmarket, to receive 
the staff which was the symbol of his new office ; " wood 
is dearer at Newmarket than in any other place in Eng- 
land." He had in fact to pay 20,000/. for the office. The 
price of a peerage was as well known as the price of a 
commission in the army was known a few years ago. 

To the indignation thus aroused Bacon was the first 
victim. Raised to the highest dignity of the law, he was 
now Lord Chancellor of England. But the hope which 



1 62 1. The Spa?iianh Ik the Palatinate. 35 

had been his when he had devoted himself to poUtics, 

if it remained at all, flickered with but a 

feeble rav. Once he had believed that he ^".•.^^'^""'s 

•' position. 

might do good service to the State. He 
lived to find his advice taken on legal details, but re- 
jected on high matters of policy. In the building up of 
the royal authority he was of infinite service, and it was 
with his good-will, if not under his direct action, that a 
series of retrenchments, with the help of the growing 
commercial prosperity of the kingdom, had filled up the 
deficit, and had freed the king from the necessity of 
seeking aid in time of peace from the Commons, except 
so far as he needed money for the payment of debts in- 
curred in the past days of extravagance. But in the di- 
rection of the policy of England his word was of slight 
avail. 

The blow which struck him down reached him from 
an unexpected quarter. If there was one thing upon 
which he prided himself more than another 
it was upon the justice of his decisions as a ? 12. Hisac- 

" J cusation. 

judge. Charge after charge was brought 
before the Commons accusing him of bribery, and these 
charges were by them sent up to the Lords. At first he 
fancied that the charges were invented to serve a politi- 
cal purpose. " If this be to be a Chancellor," he said, 
mournfully, " I think if the great seal lay upon Hounslow 
Heath, nobody would take it up." But it soon became 
plain, even to him, that there was real ground for the 
accusation. In those days a judge received a merely 
nominal salary from the government, and was paid by 
suitors' fees. In Chancery a looser system prevailed, 
and the Lord Chancellor was in the habit of receiving 
presents from the winning party after a suit had been 
decided. As far as it is possible to ascertain the truth, it 



36 The Spanish Alliance. 1621. 

does not seem that Bacon's judgments were affected by 
the money which he received. But there is no doubt that 
he took money when suits were still undecided, and under 
circumstances which deprived him of any vahd excuse 
for the action. His own opinion of the case is probably, 
in the main, the true one. His sentence was "just, and 
for reformation sake fit," yet he was " the justest Chan- 
cellor" that had been since his father's time. 

His sentence was heavy. Stripped of his offices, fined 
and imprisoned, he owed the alleviation of his penalty 

to the favor of the king. He acknowledged 
§13. His sen- his fault. " My Lords," he said, "it is my 

act, my hand, my heart. I beseech your 
lordships, be merciful unto a broken reed." Never again 
was any judge accused of corruption. 

The revival of impeachments — for, though Bacon's 
trial differed from an ordinary impeachment in some 

details, it may well be reckoned amongst 
lnmp?ach-^* them- was an event of the highest consti- 
nients. tutional importance. In an impeachment 

the House of Commons, acting as the grand jury of the 
whole country, presented offenders against the common- 
wealth to be judged by the House of Lords, sitting as 
judge and jury combined. In Enghsh history impeach- 
ments are found in two distinct periods ; the first reach- 
ing from the reign of Edward III. to that of Henry VI., 
the other reaching from the reign of James I. to that of 
William III. This chronology speaks for itself. When 
the predominance either of King or Parhament was 
secured, it was felt to be better that political opponents 
should be dealt with by mere dismissal from office, and 
that criminal offences excepting during the reign of terror 
which marked the later times of Henry VIII., should be 
tried before professional judges. But when Parliament 



1 6 2 1 . The Loss of the Palatinate. 3 7 

was engaged in a struggle with the kingly power, and 
had not the acknowledged right to dismiss the ministers 
of the crown, it seemed the best way to give a legal color 
to the charge, whilst the accused were sent before a tri- 
bunal which was strongly swayed by political feeling. 
In Bacon's case there can be no doubt that the indigna- 
tion was genuine and well-founded. But when once the 
system was recalled to hfe, it would be easy to exaggerate 
faults committed, and to demand punishment for a crime, 
when dismissal for political wrong-doing could not other- 
wise be obtained. 



Section IV. — The Loss of the Palatinate. 

Time was passing rapidly, and nothing serious had 
been done for the Palatinate. Before the House of Com- 
mons adjourned for the summer, it voted a , ^ , 

-• . § I. Declara- 

declaration of sympathy with the German tionofthe 
Protestants, and protested that if his Majesty °™™°"^- 
failed to secure peace by negotiation, they would be 
ready to the uttermost of their powers, " both with their 
lives and fortunes, to assist him." This declaration, said 
one who was present, " comes from heaven. It will do 
more for us than if we had ten thousand soldiers on the 
march." It was put and carried by acclamation. " It 
was entertained with much joy and a general consent of 
the whole House, and sounded forth with the voices of 
them all, withal lifting up their hats in their hands as 
high as they could hold them, as a visible testimony of 
their unanimous consent, in such sort that the like had 
scarce ever been seen in Parliament." 

The m.ediation in Germany was entrusted to Lord 
Digby, a wise and experienced diplomatist, who had 



38 The Spanish Alliance. 1621. 

, before represented the King of England at 
mission to Madrid When he reached Vienna it was 
lenna. ^^^ j^^^ ^^ interpose. On the one hand 

Frederick's allies had fallen rapidly from him and had 
made their peace with the Emperor. On the other hand 
he had entrusted the defence of the Upper Palatinate to 
Count Mansfeld, an adventurer who was quite accus- 
tomed to live upon plunder, and who being of necessity- 
left without money or supphes, had no other means of 
supporting his army. Ferdinand expressed his readiness 
to forgive Frederick if he would abandon his claims, 
withdraw all resistance, and humbly acknowledge his 
offence. Frederick announced that he was ready, if the 
possession of his territories and honors were assured 
him, to relinquish his claims to the kingdom of Bohemia, 
and to make some formal acknowledgment of submis- 
sion. Before Digby could reconcile these conflicting 
views, war blazed up afresh. Mansfeld, unable to de- 
fend the Upper Palatinate, retreated hastily to the Lower, 
followed by Tilly at the head of the Imperial forces. 
When James heard the news he hastily summoned Par- 
liament to ask for money to enable him to keep Mans- 
feld' s men on foot during the winter. 

The Commons agreed to give the money for which 
the king asked. But between their views and his there 

was a wide difference. The king continued 
§3 The Com- . , , .^ , ^ ■■ v j 

mens' distrust to entertain a hope that if he was obliged 

of Spain. ^^ break with the Emperor, he might still 

retain the good-will of Spain ; and he had never aband- 
oned the negotiations for the Prince's marriage with the 
Infanta. The Commons saw that Spain had been the 
first to occupy towns in the Pa4atinate. They believed 
even more than was really the case that Spain was the 
prime offender, and that if Spain were defeated all dan- 



1 62 1. The Loss of the Palatinate. 39 

ger v/ould be at an end. As Sir Robert Phelps, the 
most impetuous orator in the House, put it, there was 
the great wheel of Spain and the little wheel of the Ger- 
man princes. If the great wheel were stopped, the little 
wheel would stop of itself. 

James doubtless knew more than the Commons of 
Continental politics. But, as often happens, difference 
of opinion on one point is only the outcome of far wider 
differences in the background. With the Commons the 
Emperor was but a name and nothing more, g ^ The Com- 
Spain and not the Emperor had interfered "^^l^-^^^ '^^ 
in favor of the English Catholics. Spain marriage. 
and not the Emperor was trying by marrying the prin- 
cess to the heir of the English crown to get a footing 
within the fortress, and to subdue England by intrigue 
as it was subduing the Palatinate by force. 

As a matter of policy, James may very likely have 
been right in wanting to fight the Emperor without hav- 
ing to fight Spain as well. But in the main 

Q o r ^5. James can- 

the Commons were in the right. Such a not conciliate 
war as that which was being fought out on 
the Continent was a war of opinion. The real question 
was whether Protestantism should extend its borders to 
the detriment of Catholicism, or Cathohcism should ex- 
tend its borders to the detriment of Protestantism. 
James, wisely enough, wished for neither. But as the 
fight had begun, he must either leave it alone or throw 
himself on the Protestant side, trying to moderate his 
allies if they gained the victory. As both parties were 
thoroughly excited, it was no use to expect the Span- 
iards to join him in defending a Protestant prince against 
their own friends. 

The Commons therefore were consistent in telling 
James that he ought to break with Spain entirely. They 



40 The Spanish Alliance. 1621. 

added that he ought to put himself at the 
fhe CommonL ^ead of the Continental Protestants against 

Spain. He ought to enforce the penal laws 
against the Catholics at home. He ought to marry his 
son to a princess of his own religion. 

To this advice James refused even to listen. The 
Commons, he said, had no right to treat of business on 
a Dissolution which he had not asked their opinion. They 
of Parliament, replied by a protestation of their right to 
treat of any business they pleased. James tore the pro- 
testation out of their Journal Book with his own hands, 
and dissolved Parhament. 

It may be that it would have been more prudent in 
the Commons to engage James in the war, and to wait 

till necessity brought on a quarrel with Spain. 

a 8. Want of ^ . .,11, , , , 

confidence in But it was hardly to be expected that they 
James, should rcposc Confidence in the king. For 

four years everything that he had undertaken had gone 
wrong, and it was but too probable that everything would 
go wrong again. 

James did not consider the Palatinate as lost. There 

was an act of Parliament, in the reign of Richard III., 

by which kings were forbidden to levy mo- 

gg^Theloss ^ley from their subjects under the name of 

ofthePaiati- ^ bcnevolcnce. But in 1614 the crown 

nate. _ _ ^ 

lawyers had interpreted this to mean only 
that nobody could be compelled to pay a benevolence, 
whilst there was nothing to prevent the king from ask- 
ing his subjects to give him money if they chose to do 
so. At that time therefore a benevolence had been de- 
manded and obtained. Another was now asked for, 
and James thus got together enough to pay Vere's vol- 
unteers for a few months. He tried diplomacy once 
more. But neither his diplomacy nor such arms as he 



1623. The Journey to Madrid. 41 

could command without Parliamentary aid were of any 
avail. Step by step the Palatinate was lost. Its de- 
fenders were defeated and its fortresses fell into the en- 
emy's hands. Spain was lavish of promises. But its 
promises were never fulfilled. 



Section V. — The Journey to Madrid. 

Whilst ambassadors were writing despatches, Buck- 
ingham allowed himself to be persuaded that there was 
still one path to success if every other failed. If he could 
take the Prince with him to court the Infanta at Madrid 
the Spaniards would hardly dare, in the „ 

r /• 1 1 • r . § I- The idea 

face of such a compliment, to refuse to give of the Spanish 
him the Palatinate as a wedding present. •'°"''"^y- 
Charles was easily persuaded, and the two young men 
told the king what they were going to do. 

The old man was much troubled. He fancied that he 
should never again see his son, — Baby Charles, as he 
playfully called him. But he had never 
been able to say no in his life to any one he Lforied^^ 
loved, and he could not do so now. With 
a heavy heart he gave the permission which had been 
asked only as a matter of form. 

Charles and Buckingham put on false beards, and 
started as Tom and John Smith. When they passed the 
ferry at Gravesend, the Prince gave the 
boatman a purse of gold. Supposing them ^ 3. The 
to be duellists intending to cross the sea to JQ^^ney. 
fight, the man gave information to the magistrate, and 
a chase was ordered. But the picked horses of Buck- 
ingham's stable were not easily to be run down, and the 
party got clear off. At Canterbury they were taken for 
murderers escaping from justice, and Buckingham had 
E 



42 The Spanish Allia?ice. 1623. 

to pull off his beard and show himself, inventing a story 
to account for his unexpected presence. After this there 
was no further difficulty. At Paris Charles saw his fu- 
ture wife, a child of thirteen, the Princess Henrietta 
Maria ; but he does not seem to have taken much no- 
tice of her. Arriving without further adventure at Ma- 
drid, he knocked at the door of the English ambassa- 
dor, the Lord Digby who had been employed at Vienna, 
and had recently been created Earl of Bristol. 

The King of Spain received the Prince with every 
demonstration of friendliness. In truth, he was in a sad 
dilemma. He had no objection to seeing the Palatinate 
given back, provided that he could do it without injuring 
his Church or offending his kinsman the 
lar'ds in\ ^^"' Emperor. If it could be arranged that 
dilemma. Frederick's sons should be brought up at 

Vienna, no doubt they would be persuaded to become 
Catholics, and everything would be properly settled. 
Then again, there was the difficulty about the marriage 
of his sister the Infanta Maria. He had never meant 
that it should come to anything unless James would grant 
such complete liberty of worship to the English Catholics 
as to give them a chance — a certainty as ardent Span- 
iards thought — of reconverting England. And now the 
poor girl had been crying bitterly, and assuring him that 
even under such circumstances she could not possibly 
marry a heretic. Her confessor had worked her up to a 
pitch of despair. "What a comfortable bed-fellow you 
will have," he said to her; "he who Hes by your side, 
and who will be the father of your children, is certain to 
go to hell. " 

At first, escape from these difficulties seemed not so 
very hard. Surely, thought the Spaniards, the Prince 
would never have come to Madrid if he had not meant 



1623. The Jourfiey to Aladrid. 43 

to be converted. Charles encouraged the 

, , ,. , . • 1 • 1 ? 5- "I hey try 

notion by holding his tongue in his usual to convert 
silent way. They plied him with arguments ^"^^ P^nce. 
and got up a religious conference in his presence. But 
he had no mind to pay attention to anything of the kind, 
and Buckingham behaved to the priests with special 
rudeness. 

If the Spaniards could not convert the Prince, the 
next best thing was to throw on some one else the blame 
of their refusal to allow him to marry the 
Infanta. There could be no marriage with f^at th" Po^p^e^ 
a Protestant without the Pope's leave, and "^^'^ ^'^''^'^ ^''^ 

^ ' marriage. 

as they knew that the Pope disliked the 
marriage, they hoped that he would refuse to allow it. 
But the Pope was too wary for that. He thought that if 
the marriage was broken off by him Charles and his 
father would take vengeance for their disappointment 
on the English Catholics. If it was broken off by the 
King of Spain, they would only be angry with the Span- 
iards. He granted the permission on condition that the 
King of Spain would swear that James and Charles would 
perform the promise which they were required to make 
in favor of the English Catholics. 

What was the king to do ? How could he possibly 
swear that James would fulfil his promise ? He referred 
his case of conscience to a council of theo- 
logians, and the theologians decided that oftheKing" 
the best way to secure James' fulfilment of o^Spam. 
his promises was to keep the Infanta in Spain for a year 
after the marriage had taken place. By that time it 
would be seen what had been really done in England. 
The advice thus given was adopted by Philip. 

Charles writhed under the pressure put upon him. At 
one time he bristled up in anger and declared that he 



44 The Spanish Alliance. 1623. 

would go home to England. But he could 
g 8. Charles' j-^qj- ^^^^x himself awav. Step by step he 

love-making. •' r j r 

offered to do more and more for the English 
Catholics, hoping that he would be allowed in return for 
mere words to take his bride with him. It was all in 
vain. His attempts at making love, too, were singularly- 
unfortunate. One day he jumped over the wall into a 
garden in which the Infanta was walking. The young 
lady, who thoroughly detested her heretic admirer, 
shrieked and fled. On another occasion he was allowed 
to pay a visit to his mistress in the presence of all the 
court, and some formal words were set down which he 
was expected to utter. Unable to restrain himself he 
began to declare his affection in words of his own choice. 
At once the bystanders began to whisper to one another. 
The queen frowned, and the Infanta, though she was 
deeply annoyed, and had lately been heard to say that 
the only consolation which she could find in the marriage 
was that she should die a martyr, had sufficient self- 
possession to speak the words set down for her and to 
bring the interview to an end. 

In England the Infanta's feeling was fully reciprocated. 

Even James had never realized at all that he would be 

required to concede so much. 'We are 

§9. The mar- building a temple to the devil," he said, in 

nage treaty. o r- 

speaking of the chapel which he was re- 
quired to prepare for the Infanta. But he dared not risk 
his son's safety by refusing anything that was asked. He 
swore, and forced his council to swear, to the treaty as it 
was sent to him. The Infanta was to have her public church 
to which all Englishmen who chose might have access. 
She was to control the education of her children during 
the impressionable years of childhood. The Catholics were 
to be allowed liberty of worship in their private houses. 



1623. The Jourtiey to Madrid. 45 

Much of this sounds innocent enough now. But it was 
not thought innocent then. The rehgion which was to 
be tolerated was bmcked by a vast organiza- 

• 1 r 1 n J ■ . •. § lo- Its an- 

tion with powerful fleets and armies at its popularity in 
back. The change was to be effected not England. 
because it was a good change, but because it was desi- 
rable to please the master of those fleets and armies. 
The marriage itself was an offence to England. The 
Enghsh kingship had been the centre of resistance to a 
foreign Church and a foreign enemy. Who could tell 
whether James' grandchildren would not be on the side 
of that foreign Church and of that foreign enemy ? It 
was no mere question of this theology or that theology. 
It was the whole framework of life, present and to come, 
which was threatened. The Spanish marriage treaty, it 
may fairly be said, threw back the cause of toleration for 
half a century. It awoke again the old Protestant resist- 
ance, and gave new life to Puritanism- James had 
drawn nearer to Spain, but had opened a gap between 
himself and England. 

At Madrid Charles promised all that his father had 
promised, and a little more He hoped that his compli- 
ance would extract permission for the In- 
fanta to accompany him. But it could not § "• Charles' 

^ •' return. 

be. The theologians were resolute to the 
contrary, and their decision was final. Charles learned, 
too, how little hope there was of recovering the Palati- 
nate. In high dudgeon he left Madrid. As he was 
travelling, he was asked by a Spaniard who was accom- 
panying him whether he wished the carriage to be 
opened. " I should not dare," he repHed ironically, "to 
give my assent without sending post to ]\Tadrid to consult 
the theologians." At Santander he found an English 
6eet awaiting him. On board he felt himself free at last. 



46 The Ascendancy of Buckingham. 1624. 

He landed at Portsmouth with a resolute determination 
never to marry the Infanta, 



CHAPTER HI. 

THE ASCENDANCY OF BUCKINGHAM. 

Section I. — The last Parliamejit of James I. 

With Buckingham and Charles exasperated against 

Spain, it would have been hard for James, under any 

circumstances, to remain on friendly ternis 

2 1. James com- • ^ ■% • -r, . - , . - 

peiied to break With that nation. But even if the influence 
with Spain. Qf j^-g ^^^ ^^^ j^jg favorite had been re- 
moved, he could hardly have gone on much longer in 
his old course. It was quite plain that Spain would not 
help him to regain the Palatinate with the sword, and it 
was also quite plain that without the sword he was not 
likely to regain the Palatinate at all. He hesitated, 
doubted, changed his mind from day to day ; but unless 
he meant to give up his daughter and her children, there 
was nothing for it but to prepare for war. 

Parhament was accordingly summoned. It met on 

February 19, 1624. Lashed to anger against Spain by 

the events of the past years, the Commons 

§2. Feelings Were ready to join in Buckingham's vocifer- 

Parliament. °"^ ^"^^ ^°^ ^^^' ^"^ ^^ attempt of the 

King of Spain to make his daughter Queen 
of England exasperated them more than his attempt to 
place his ally in possession of Heidelberg. The very 
fact that the Spanish marriage treaty was at an end 
made them somewhat cooler about the Palatinate. No 
doubt they still cared about the fortunes of the German 



1624. ThelastFarlia7nentofJamesI. 47 

Protestants, but they no longer felt that their own for- 
tunes were so directly involved in the ruin of their neigh- 
bors. Nor were they well acquainted with German 
affairs, and when the king talked to them of the great 
expense of the war, they fancied that he was leading 
them into unnecessary and extravagant operations. But 
they voted only just enough money to strengthen the de- 
fences of England and Ireland, to set out a fleet, and to 
send help to the Dutch in their struggle against Spain. 
They were not ready to engage in war in Germany with- 
out further information. 

James knew that nothing but a great Continental alli- 
ance would win back the Palatinate. But he did not like 
to give up his plan of working together with 
some Catholic power. If he could not marry ^^^^ ^'ideas 
his son to the sister of the King of Spain, 
he would marry him to the sister of the King of France. 
England and France combined would settle the affairs 
of Germany. 

The plan did not please the Commons. They did not 
wish to have a Roman Catholic queen at all. They 
were afraid that the marriage treaty would 
contain some fresh promise of toleration for tion of war 
the English Catholics. But Charles and p°^'p°"^ 
James solemnly declared that they would make no such 
promise. James accepted the supplies which had been 
already voted, on the understanding that the Houses were 
to meet again in the winter to vote more if it was needed. 
The king would have time to send ambassadors about 
Europe to see who would help him before he made any 
further demand upon the Commons. 

In the meantime work was found for Parliament. 
Lionel Cranfield, earl of Middlesex, was Lord High 
Treasurer. He had done more than any other man 



48 The Ascendancy of Buckingham. 1624. 

to rescue the finances from disorder. He 
|5- Fall of -^as a careful guardian of the public purse. 

But he disliked war with Spain because it 
would be expensive, and had done his best to keep the 
king's mind in a peaceful mood. Such conduct drew 
down upon him the displeasure of Buckingham and the 
Prince, as well as the displeasure of the House of Com- 
mons. It was easy to find an excuse for attacking him. 
In providing for the king's necessities he had not forgot- 
ten to heap up a fortune for himself. The Commons im- 
peached him for corruption, Buckingham and Charles 
hounding them on. Middlesex was stripped of his office 
and heavily fined. The shrewd old king warned his 
favorite and his son of the danger they were incurring 
by encouraging such attacks upon ministers of the crown. 
" You will live," he said, "to have your bellyful of im- 
peachments." 

The French were not so easily won as the English 
government supposed. Lewis XHI. hated Spain and 

the Emperor, and was ready to encourage 
French anybody who proposed to fight against his 

lance. enemies. But he was a devoted Catholic, 

and had no idea of giving his sister in marriage unless 
something were done for the English Catholics. Buck- 
ingham, eager for war, young and sanguine as he was, 
fancied that it was worth while for the king to break his 
promise to secure the help of France. Buckingham per- 
suaded Charles, and Charles persuaded his father. The 
treaty was signed by the end of the year. The Princess 
Henrietta Maria was to be Queen of England. 

Buckingham dared not suffer James to meet Parlia- 
ment to vote money for the war, when Parliament was 

sure to upbraid the king with breach of pro- 
tionsfoTwar. mise. But neither could he give up his 



1624. The last Parliament of James I. 49 

military designs. Money was promised freely in all 
directions. There was to be money for the Dutch 
Republic, money for the King of Denmark, money for 
an English fleet to sail against Spain, money for a joint 
expedition to be undertaken by France and England for 
the recovery of the Palatinate. 

The joint expedition was entrusted to Mansfeld. But 
the moment it was proposed to send him into Germany 
the French began to raise objections. They 
wanted the men to be used for purposes of ? ^- Mansfeid's 

^ ^ expedition. 

their own, and insisted that Mansfeld should 

go, at least at first, to help the Dutch in their struggle 

with Spain. 

Twelve thousand Englishmen, torn from their homes 
by the king's command, were entrusted to Mansfeld. 
They gathered at Dover and passed over 
into Holland. James managed to give them ^- ^ftg'f^Qm.e 
a little money to begin with. But without a 
Parliament to vote supplies, he soon came to the bottom 
of his treasury. The men arrived in Holland without 
provisions and v/ithout money to buy any. Frost set in, 
and disease broke out. In a few weeks nine thousand 
out of the whole number were counted amongst the dead 
or dying. 

Such was Buckingham's first experience of making 
war without national support. In spite of all 
he pushed blindly on. New schemes of if^^-s fj^emef ' 
fighting fillecj his imagination, each one in 
succession more extensive and more costly than the last. 

Before any fresh disaster occurred, James died. With 
hesitation and reluctance he had followed .^ ^ 

March 27. 

Buckingham in almost everything that he i n. Death 
proposed. The new king was ready to fol- 
low him without either hesitation or reluctance. 



50 The Ascendancy of BucJzijigham. 1625. 



Section II. — The first Parliament of Charles I. 

In many respects Charles was the opposite of his 
father. He was stately and dignified, fond of outward 
form and ceremony. In dealing with the world James 
was apt to leave much to chance, believing 
ind Slither, that things would come right in the end if 
he left them alone. Charles had no such 
belief. If he thought that things ought to be done in a 
certain way, he could not endure that they should be 
done in any other way. But he had neither the energy 
nor the capacity required for the wise conduct of affairs, 
and he lived too much in a world of his own ideas to in- 
fluence men whose thoughts he was unable to compre- 
hend. In early life at least this confidence in his own 
judgment was accompanied by shyness. He did not 
like to be opposed, and fell back upon silence. Hence 
doubtless his attachment to Buckingham. Buckingham's 
fault was the very opposite to shyness. He took up 
(Charles' notions and translated them into action before 
Charles knew what he was about. Charles wanted to 
get back the Palatinate for his sister, but he did not know 
how to do it. Before he could solve the riddle for him- 
self, Buckingham had engaged him in half a dozen plans 
for getting what he wanted. He clung to his favorite as 
a dumb man clings to him who understands his signs and 
interprets them to the bystanders. 

As soon as the new queen was safely in England and 
it was too late to forbid the banns, Parliament was sum- 
moned. Money was sorely needed. But 
fir^st Parlia- how was Charles to ask for it ? The last 
ment. Parliament had separated on the under- 

standing that it should meet again in the winter to 



1625. TJie first Parliament of Charles I. 51 

arrange for the further prosecution of the war, and that 
no concessions should be made to the Enghsh CathoHcs. 
The Parhament which now met found that war had been 
undertaken without asking its advice, and that it had re- 
sulted in a terrible disaster. Though the concessions to 
the Catholics had been kept secret, it was shrewdly sus- 
pected that Charles had broken his promises. Charles 
accordingly simply asked for money to support the war, 
without naming any sum in particular. The Commons, 
after petitioning him to execute the laws against the 
Catholics, voted him a small sum of 140,000/. His en- 
gagements could not be covered by 1,000,000/. 

That the opposition of the Commons should have 
taken such a form is remarkable. It may be that they 
cared less for the war now that they were 
well rid of Spanish influence over the Eng- position of the 
lish government. But it was not their fault ^°™ni°ns. 
if they were fairly puzzled. They had not been told how 
much money wgs wanted or why it was wanted. All 
they knew was that the one expedition which had actually 
been sent out had ended in an utter failure, and that no 
excuse or explanation had been offered. They had no 
confidence in Buckingham, and when the king at last 
sent a message explaining for what purposes he wanted 
the money, they doubted the sincerity of all that was 
said to them. They declined to give a farthing more. 

The king could not understand the meaning of con- 
duct so strange. He ordered the Houses to meet again 
at Oxford, and directed his secretaries to 

n 1 i-- T-i /-^ ? 4- Adjourn- 

give all necessary explanations, i he Com- ment to 
mons replied by expressing complete want C>xford. 
of confidence in Buckingham. If they could be sure 
that the money would be spent under advice better than 
his they would give it, but not otherwise. 



52 The Ascendancy of Buckinghajn. 1625. 

Charles had made so many promises that he could 
not keep them all. He had promised the King of France 

that he would not persecute the Catholics, 
canget^no'"^ He had promised his own Parliament that 
money. j^^ would not tolerate them. He now made 

up his mind to do as his own subjects wished. But the 
Commons were not to be led astray. They believed 
that they might as well throw money into the sea as en- 
trust it to Buckingham, and they let Charles know as 
much. 

Charles felt instinctively that to abandon Buckingham 
was to put himself under the tutelage of the Commons. 

If they were to settle who were to be the 
tion of Parh'a- ministers of the crown, they would be able 
^^^^- to control ministers, who could only keep 

their places at the good pleasure of Parliament. The 
two Houses would thus become practically the sovereigns 
of England. Rather than submit to this Charles dis- 
solved the Parliament. 

He hoped to be able before many months were past 
to meet a new Parliament with all the prestige of a great 

victory. All the money on which he could 
I ^' Sfiz^^^'^ ^^^ ^^^ hands was spent in fitting out a fleet 

with a large land force on board. Lord 
"Wimbledon who commanded it was ordered to take 
some Spanish town, and then to lie in wait for the fleet 
which annually brought to Spainthe produce of themines 
of America, To the end of his life it was always Charles' 
mistake to fancy that if he brought together a large fleet 
or a numerous army he might do anything he liked. 

It could not be so. The greater part of the fleet was 
made up of merchant vessels pressed into the king's 

service with their crews. The landsmen 
In Cadfz Bay. had been torn from their homes by force. 



i6?5- The Fleet for Cadiz. 53 

A few officers in the king's service wished to succeed. 
But the greater part of the force only cared to escape 
with a whole skin. When Wimbledon sailed into 
Cadiz Bay and ordered an attack upon a fort which 
defended the harbor, the chief efforts of the masters of 
the pressed vessels were directed to keeping out of the 
way of the shot. If there was a want of devotion in the 
lower ranks there was a want of intelligence in the offi- 
cers. When the fort at last surrendered, Wimbledon 
led his men away from the town many miles in pursuit 
of an imaginary enemy. He forgot to take food with 
him, and after a long march on a hot summer's day the 
men were starving. Then he allowed them to drink 
wine, and as it turned out that there was plenty of wine 
to be had, the whole army, with the exception of a hand- 
ful of officers, soon became helplessly drunk. A Spanish 
detachment might have slaughtered them all. When 
Wimbledon marched back the next day there was 
nothing to be done. Cadiz was too strong to be taken. 
Putting to sea, he began to look out for the treasure 
ships. But the treasure ships sailed into Cadiz Bay two 
days after Wimbledon left it, and after keeping watch in 
vain off the coast of Portugal, the English vessels hurried 
home with tattered sails and starving crews. Charles 
would not be able to appear before Parliament in the 
guise of a conqueror. 

Whilst Wimbledon was at Cadiz, Buckingham had 
gone to Holland to raise up a great confederacy against 
Spain and the allies of Spain. He had 
promised 30,000/. a month to the king of i?am?nHdI 
Denmark, and if Wimbledon had returned ^^"'^■ 
victorious he would probably have found little difficulty 
in persuading the Commons to grant the supplies he 
needed. But Wimbledon had done nothing, and there 



54 The Ascendancy of Buckingham. 1625. 

was little hope that a second Parliament would prove 
more compliant than the first. 

Section \\\.—TJie Impeachment of Buckinghaniy and 
the Expedition to Rhe. 

Charles* position was the more dangerous as he was 
on the brink of a contest with France. Lewis XIII. had 
taken umbrage at Charles' renewed perse- 
lent to the ^^^ cution of the English Catholics in defiance 
French. ^^ j^-g promises, and Charles had been in- 

sensibly drawn on to interfere in the internal affairs of 
France. Before James died the Protestants of Rochelle 
had revolted against the French king, and James had 
hastily consented to lend an English squadron to assist 
Lewis to put down rebelhon. In the spring of 1625 
Charles and Buckingham wished to draw back, and not 
daring openly to break their engagements, sent secret 
orders to the commander of the fleet to get up a mutiny 
on board his own ships, that they might be brought back 
to England apparently against the wish of the king. 
The plan succeeded for a time. But news arrived that 
Lewis and his subjects were at peace, and Charles 
fancied that he might curry favor with him by sending 
the ships now that they would be of no real service. 
The news of peace turned out to be untrue, and Lewis 
kept Charles' ships without owing him any thanks, whilst 
Englishmen who knew nothing of all these manoeuvres 
blamed Charles for lending the ships at all, to be Used 
against Protestants abroad. 

Other causes of dissatisfaction arose. Charles held 

that French ships had no right to carry the goods of his 

enemies, the Spaniards, seized the vessels 

g 2!^"FLrther and Eold the goods. Even Charles' efforts 

dispute-,. ^^ avert a breach were imprudent. In or- 



1625. The Iinpeachmejit of Buckingham. 5 5 

der that he might obtain the co-operation of France in 
the German war, he mediated a peace between Lewis 
and his sidojects, and made himself morally responsible 
for the execution of its conditions, a responsibility which 
was sure to lead him sooner or later to give offence to 
Lewis. 

When Parliament met, many of the leaders of the 
last session were absent. Charles had been clever 
enough to make them sheriffs, and as sher- ^ 

. § 3. Meeting 

iffs were wanted in their own counties, they ot Pariiami:nt. 
could not be at Westminster at the same 
time. His cleverness about the sheriffs met with as little 
success as his cleverness about the ships. The House 
found in Sir John Eliot a leader even abler and far more 
vehement than those who had been kept away. 

Eliot had already made himself a name as the first 
orator of the day. But he had not cared to lift up his 
voice much in the last Parliament. Person- 
ally attached to Buckingham, he had been y^f^'J^^'' 
loth to admit the conviction to his mind 
that Buckingham was an incumbrance to his country. 
That thought once admitted, there were no bounds to 
Eliot's abhorrence. He loved England with all the 
passionate enthusiasm which Pericles felt for Athens, 
and he trusted in the House of Commons as no man 
ever trusted before or since. It was for him in a very 
real sense the collective wisdom of the nation. Kings 
and rulers had but to consult the House of Commons, 
and they would find wisdom there. With this confi- 
dence in men whom he knew to be in earnest was joined 
a faith in all pure and noble deeds, and a contemptuous 
abhorrence of all things mean and base. In the follies 
of the splendid favorite he saw greed and selfishness, 
and deliberate treason to his beloved country. 



56 The Ascendancy of Buckingham. 1626. 

What wonder if Eliot called for inquiry into the mis- 
management which had led to so many disasters by 
2 5. Bucking- ^^^ ^^"^ I'A.nd. What wonder if he traced 
ham's impeach- the cause of all evil to the traitorous wicked- 

ment. 

ness of Buckmgham. Before long the Com- 
mons impeached the minister. The tale of crime, real 
and imaginary, was unrolled in the ears of men, and 
the Lords were called upon to visit with the severest 
penalties the man who had made himself all-powerful 
in order that he might ruin the State for selfish ends. 
Charles was deeply vexed. One day he heard that 
Eliot had branded Buckingham as Sejanus. 
!f%?r\Ta°menr " If ^e is Sejanus," he muttered, " I must be 
Tiberius." If the Commons exaggerated the 
worst traits of Buckingham's character, Charles dwelt 
exclusively on his better qualities, his frank and open 
bearing, his undaunted courage, his devotion to his 
master's interests. Rather than abandon his minister 
he dissolved Parliament before it had voted a single 
sixpence. 

Charles' first hope was that the nation would give 
him what the Commons had refused. A demand for a, 
a 7. The free ^^^^ ^^^'^ ^° support the war was made in 
g^^'- every county. But with few exceptions the 

inhabitants of the counties turned a deaf ear to the de- 
mand. 

Some one suggested that if men could not be forced 
to give money to the king, they had often been made 
to lend. The King of Denmark suffered a grievous de- 
feat at Lutter, mainly from want of the suc- 
forced^oan '^^'^^ which Charles had promised him. In 
order that help might be sent him, Charles 
ordered the collection of a forced loan. 

Before the money came in it was evident that but little 



1627. The Expedition to Rhe. 5 7 

of it would be spent in sending aid to the King of Den- 
mark. The ill-feehng between France and ^^ j^;^^^,^ 
Eneland was increasing. Lewis, now under between France 

,., ^T^ii- 1 .T- 1, and England. 

the guidance of Richeheu, the great rrench 
statesman of the age, had made peace with his Protes- 
tant subjects in the hope that Charles would enter into 
active operations in Germany. Charles, who had no 
money to employ in fighting, haggled over the terms of 
the alliance, and put himself ostentatiously forward as 
the protector of the French Protestants. Lewis, who 
dared not embark in a war in Germany if there was a 
chance of Charles* coming to the assistance of any of 
his subjects v/ho might choose to revolt, prepared to lay 
siege to the great Protestant seaport of Rochelle, which 
was entirely independent of his authority. Charles felt 
himself in honor bound to come to its defence. 

Other causes of dispute were not wanting. The French 
attendants of the queen taught her to regard herself as 
injured because Charles had broken his 
promises in favor of the English Catholics. disn^bsal of 
He could not, he said, count his wife his own fouSold! 
as long as they were there, and, without 
thought of the engagements which pledged him to keep 
the queen's household as it was, he drove her attendants 
out of England. 

The natural result was war between France and Eng- 
land. The forced loan was driven on to ^ ^ ^ 
supply the means. Chief Justice Crewe, § n. War 

. . , ■■■■•IT. J- with France. 

refusmg to acknowledge its legality, was dis- 
missed. Poor men who refused to pay were sent as 
soldiers into foreign service. Rich men were summoned 
before the council and committed to prison. By these 
harsh measures a considerable sum was scraped together. 
A handful of men was despatched to help the King of 
F 



58 The Ascendancy of Buckingham. 1627. 

Denmark in Germany, and a stately fleet of a hundred 
sail, carrying a large force on board, was prepared to go 
under Buckingham's command to the relief of Rochelle. 
On July 12 the English troops, after a sharp contest 
with the enemy, landed on the Isle of Rhe, which, if it 
came into Buckingham's hands, would be an 
pedition^to*" admirable point of vantage for the defence 
^^^- of the neighboring Rochelle. On July 17 

Buckingham commenced the siege of St. Martin's, its 
principal fortress. The ground was rocky, and the siege 
was soon converted into a blockade. On September 27 
the garrison had but three days' provisions left, and 
opened negotiations for a surrender. In the night thirty- 
five boats, favored by a stiff breeze, dashed through the 
Enghsh blockading squadron, an4revictualledthe place. 
The besieged had respite for two months longer. 

If reinforcements could reach Buckingham to enable 
him to keep up the numbers which were thinned by dis- 
ease, all might yet go well. Charles at home 
§ 13. The urged his ministers to the utmost. But 

money and men were hard to find. Buck- 
ingham's rise had been too sudden, and his monopoly 
of the king's favor too complete, to give him much 
chance of a favorable judgment from the higher classes, 
and now no man who was not a creature of the court 
trusted Buckingham any longer. Before the reinforce- 
ments could reach him the end had come. A French 
force had landed on the island, and Buckingham, after 
one hopeless attempt to storm the fort, gave orders for a 
retreat. Mismanagement completed the ruin which an 
evil policy had begun. The French fell upon the invaders 
as they struggled to regain their ships, and of 6,800 Eng- 
lish troops less than 3,000, worn with hunger and sick- 
ness, were landed in England. 



1 6 2 8 . The Petition of J\ight. 5 9 

Section IV. — The Petitio7i of Right and the Assassina- 
tion of Buckingham. 

After the failure at Rhe Buckingham's unpopularity- 
reached its highest pitch. " Since England 

^ ^ O AD J627. 

was England," we find in a letter of the time, November. 
" it received not so dishonorable a blow." farity of^Buc'k- 
The fault that had occurred was laid upon '"g^^'^^- 
Buckingham. 

Five of the prisoners who were suffering for their re- 
fusal to pay the loan were inspirited to appeal to the 
Judges for a writ of habeas corpus, which 
would enable them to be fairly tried upon corpus A&- 
any charge which the king had to bring ^nanded. 
against them. But the king had named no charge, and 
the Judges were of opinion that within some undefined 
limits it was for the king to decide whether prisoners 
should be tried or not. 

Neither Buckingham nor Charles had any thought of 
stopping the war. A fleet was got ready under Bucking- 
ham's brother-in-law, the Earl of Denbigh, 
to carry provisions to Rochelle, which was g^, Charles' 
now besieged by the French, and a Parlia- menl^^'^''*" 
ment was summoned to grant supplies for 
the payment of the fleet. 

The leader who gave the tone to the opening debates 
was Sir Thomas Wentworth. Sprung from 
a wealthy and ancient house in Yorkshire, ^entworth""^ 
he was inspired by a lofty consciousness of 
his own consummate abilities as a speaker and a states- 
man. In every point he was the very opposite of Eliot. 
He disbelieved entirely in the wisdom of the House of 
Commons, and thought it very unlikely that a large and 
heterogeneous body could ever undertake the govern- 



6o The Ascendancy of Buckingham. 1628. 

merit of a great kingdom with advantage. Believing 
that important reforms and vv^ise government were abso- 
lutely necessary for the well-being of England, and 
knowing that such a rule as he wished to see could only 
be evolved from the intellect of the few, he was apt to 
forget that without the support of the many, the few who 
were wise would be unable to get their wishes carried 
out, and that even if they succeeded for a time, it would 
only be by, crushing that life and vigor in the body of 
the nation out of which alone any permanent order could 
be evolved. 

The contrast between Eliot and Wentworth, in short, 

may be best illustrated by an imaginary conflict between 

the heart and the brain to be considered the 

? ?• ^,'?^P^''^*^ chief organs of the human body. Eliot was 

with Miot. ^ ^ 

for the heart, Wentworth for the brain. Eliot 
was right in saying that government could not be carried 
on except in agreement with the representatives of the 
nation. Wentworth was right in saying that it could not 
be carried on except by men possessing qualities above 
those of the average member of the House of Com- 
mons. 

Around this conflict of opinion the course of the com- 
ing revolution, so far at least as it was a political revolu- 
3 6 Both op- tion, was to turn. For the present, the two 
p ^sed to Buck- prreat men could work together. The rule 

ingham. ° ° 

of Buckingham was detestable, both to the 
intellect and to the feeling of the nation. Wentworth 
and Eliot could join in putting a stop to that. 

After much discussion, a Petition of Right, that is to 

say, a declaration that certain rights of the 

Petition of nation which had been violated must be ac- 

'^ ^' knowledged for the future, was presented to 

the king. To some of its demands Charles raised no ob- 



1628. The Petition of Right. 6 1 

jection. He was ready to promise never again to raise a 
forced loan, or to compel householders to receive soldiers 
against their will, or to give a commission to military 
officers to execute martial law in time of peace. But he 
shrank from promising that he would never send any one 
to prison without showing the cause for which he had 
done so. The concession, in fact, was of the utmost im- 
portance. Whatever the law may have been, the king 
had been in the habit of sending men to prison when he 
thought fit, and had sometimes left them there untried. If 
a cause was shown, the Judges could at once be appealed 
to by the prisoner to appoint a day for the trial, that it 
might be known whether the charge was true or not. 
The final decision on state offences would then be in the 
hands of a judicial court, and not in the hands of the 
king. 

Charles struggled long against this conclusion. But he 
needed money. Denbigh had come back from Rochelle, 
having completely failed to carry in the pro- 
visions with which he was charged. A more |ssemToit. 
powerful fleet must be fi.ttedout. Yet, unless 
Charles assented to the Petition, the Commons would 
grant no supplies. He tried hard to get over the diffi- 
culty by an evasive answer. The Commons stood firm, 
and on June 7 the great Petition became the law of the 
land. 

The Petition of Right is memorable as the first Act 
which circumscribed the exuberant powers which the 
Tudors had bequeathed to the Stuarts. But Further 

it was but the beginning of a great change. changes 
It decided that every prisoner should have 
a trial before the Judges, if he asked for it ; but it took 
no precautions that the trial should be a fair one. Unless 
a capital offence had been committed the case might be 



62 The Ascendancy of Buckifigham. 1628. 

brought before the Star Chamber, or the High Commis- 
sion, both of them under the immediate influence of the 
king, and punishing without the intervention of a jury. 
Even the ordinary Judges were much under the king's 
control. They were appointed to their places by him, and 
they might be dismissed by him. Without being con- 
sciously hypocritical, they were likely to take the same 
view of things which was taken at court. The alteration 
made by the petition could not be fully felt till the Judges 
became independent of the crown, as they did after the 
Revolution of 1688. 

It was not in this direction that the Commons imme- 
diately turned their attention. They wanted many things 
to be changed in Church and State. Above 
§ 10. Proro- all they wanted to be rid of Buckingham. 

gallon. •' 1-1 

Sooner than listen to the language which 
was uttered, Charles, having by this time got the money 
he needed, prorogued the Houses. Buckingham was to 
command the fleet which was going once more to 
Rochelle, and if Buckingham won a victory, the Com- 
mons would, perhaps, not take so harsh a view of his 
character when they reassembled. 

In August Buckingham was at Portsmouth, making 
ready for embarkation. He knew how widely dissatis- 
faction at his conduct had kindled into bitter 
ingham^at' hatred to his person. But for assassination 
Portsmouih. j^^ ^,^^ ^^^ prepared. A friend had begged 
him to wear a shirt of mail beneath his clothes. " A shirt 
of mail," he answered, "would be but a silly defence 
against any popular fury. As for a single man's assault, 
I take myself to be in no danger. There are no Roman 
spirits left." He little knew that one gloomy fanatic was 
dogging his steps. John Felton had served as an officer 
in the Expedition to Rhe. He had been refused promo- 



1628. The Petition of Right. 62, 

tion, and when he returned, he was left, like most men 
in the king's service were, with his salary unpaid. In 
his misery, he caught eagerly at the tales of which the 
air was full, and fed his mind upon a declaration, pro- 
ceeding from the Commons, that the Duke was a public 
enemy. He bought a knife, in order, as he said, to 
avenge himself, his country, and his God. 

On the morning of August 23, Felton stationed him- 
self at the entrance of the room in which Buckingham 
was breakfasting. As the Duke stepped 
out, the murderer struck him heavily in the V^ckiighim."^ 
breast, saying, " God have mercy upon thy 
soul ! " as he dealt the blow. The man who till now had 
been the ruler of England fell dead to the ground. His 
wife, warned that something terrible had happened, 
rushed out with shrieks of agony in her night-dress from 
her bed-room into a gallery which overlooked the scene. 

Felton was seized, and after due trial met the fate 
which he deserved. The fleet was sent out under another 
commander. But there was no heart in the 
sailors, no resolution in the commanders. ^ '^-f^KoSeuS 
England was weary of the war which had 
been entered on so recklessly and conducted with so 
little capacity. Rochelle surrendered to the French 
government. Charles was left alone to bear the weight 
of unpopularity which failure had caused. 



64 The Personal Government of Charles I. 1628. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE PERSONAL GOVERNMENT OF CHARLES I. 

Section I. — Taxation and Religion. 

The feeling of antagonism which had sprung up between 
Charles and the Commons boded ill for the 
g'l.' Tonnage re-establishmcnt of a good understanding 
and poundage, between them, even after the immediate 
stone of offence had been removed by Buckingham's 
death. One point of extreme delicacy had been touched 
during the final debates of the last session. For many 
reigns the habitual practice of the Commons had been 
to vote to each king, for life, at the beginning of his reign, 
certain duties on exports and imports, known as tonnage 
and poundage. Partly through the desire of the Com- 
mons to obtain a settlement in their favor of the vexed 
question of the impositions, partly through the interrup- 
tion caused by their dispute with the crown, tonnage and 
poundage had not yet been voted when Parliament was 
prorogued in June 1628. At the last moment the House 
had prepared a remonstrance stating that the levy of 
these duties without its consent was illegal by the Peti- 
tion of Right, a statement which an impartial tribunal 
would doubtless fail to justify by the wording of the 
Petition ; whilst Charles fell back upon the decision of 
the Judges in the case of the impositions in his father's 
reign, which gave him the weight of their authority in 
levying any customs duties he pleased. 

Almost immediately after the prorogation some Lon- 
don merchants refused to pay the duties on their goods. 



1628. Taxation and Religion. 65 

These sroods were at once seized. The Court 

, . , , , , • J- ? 2. 1 he ques- 

of Exchequer decided that the question ot uon referred to 
legahty must be argued before it, and that P^'-li^^^^nt. 
in the meanwhile the goods were to remain in the king's 
store-houses. But the government was not anxious to 
rest upon legal arguments. Charles made up his mind 
to waive for the present his claim under the former judg- 
ment in the case of impositions, and to hope that in the 
next session he might come to an understanding with the 
Commons which would remove all difficulties. 

Whatever the legal merits of the case may have been, 
the question of tonnage and poundage was 
the question of the sovereignty ot England. tanceof the 
Charles could not govern the country without question. 
this money, and if the claim of the Commons was ad- 
mitted, they might demand anything they liked as the 
price of their grant. The Commons would become su- 
preme, and the king would have to surrender all those 
special powers which had been bequeathed to him by the 
Tudors. 

Men seldom fight for power unless they have some 
special use to which they wish to put it. It is therefore 
improbable that, unless the Commons had Religious 
had some important object in view, there difficulties. 

, -1 , 1 1 Trr 1^ • • Strong Pro- 

would have been much difficulty m coming testamism of 

to an arrangement. Unhappily there was '^^ Commons. 
still a cause of division which was likely to give as much 
trouble as had been given by the revolt of the nation 
against the administrative blunders of Buckingham. 
The fear of danger to Protestantism from the engage- 
ments of James with Spain, and from the engagements 
of Charles with France, had produced its effect upon the 
temper of the upper classes of the nation which were 
mainly represented in the House of Commons Pun- 



66 The Personal Government of Charles /. 1628. 

tanism in the sense of a rejection of the Prayer Book as 
a whole, or of a general disposition to change the exist- 
ing ecclesiastical arrangements, had no existence except 
with a very small minority. But there was a general 
disposition to lay stress upon the special Calvinistic doc- 
trine on the subject of predestination, which most Eng- 
lishmen of that generation had been brought up to 
believe, and to regard any deviation from it as a sur- 
render to the Papal Church. Every year the fear of 
papal aggression grew stronger. On the Continent the 
Catholic powers had been winning their way to a supre- 
macy of which there had been no example since the 
great victories of the Reformation. In 1622 the Palati- 
nate had been lost to Protestantism. In 1626 the Danish 
resistance had been broken at Lutter, and now the whole 
of North Germany, with the exception of two or three 
seaport towns, lay helpless at the feet of Wallenstein and 
Tilly. In France Rochelle had succumbed to Richelieu, 
and men could hardly believe as yet that the statesman- 
ship of the Cardinal was in earnest in granting liberty 
of religion to the conquered. 

Whilst the mass of thinking men was thus lashed into 

indignation against anything which savored 
reiction'*^ of faithlessness to Protestantism, there was 
against ^ small but growing minority amongst the 

clergy which cared very little for the tyranny 
of the Emperor and the Pope in Germany, and very 
much for the tyranny of the dominant Calvinists at home. 
They questioned the received theology in scornful terms. 
In 1625 the Commons took up the challenge by sum- 
moning to their bar Richard Montague, who had written 
a book denying the popular doctrine to be the doctrine 
of the Church of England. In 1626 they impeached 
him as a disturber of the peace of the church and com- 



1628. Taxation and Religion, 67 

monvvealth. Unity of belief was to be the corner-stone 
of national unity. No opinions at variance with those 
which had prevailed in the last generation were to be 
promulgated in England, if the Commons could have 
their way. 

The zeal of the Commons for unity of belief was not 
merely theological. Montague and those who agreed 
with him had thrown themselves into the 
arms of the king. In 1627 they were fore- ^- Clerical 

^ ' ■' appointments. 

most in urging the duty of paying the forced 
loan, and one of their number, Roger Manwaring, 
preached sermons which spoke of parliaments as mere 
ciphers in the state. Charles, in his irritation against 
the Commons, showed favor to the men who had stood 
by him in his difficulties. Immediately after the proro- 
gation in 1628 he made Montague a bishop, and gave a 
good living to Manwaring. Men who held opinions thus 
widely distasteful were, it seemed, to use the position 
which they owed to the favor of their sovereign in order 
to inculcate doctrines of arbitrary power in the State, as 
well as to be set to govern the Church, and to treat with 
derision the belief of masses of earnest men. 

Before the end of the year Charles, with the assent of 
the bishops, promulgated a form of agreement which he 
undoubtedly intended to be conciliatory. 
The king's declaration, which is to this day king's de-^ 
prefixed to the Articles in the Common ckration. 
Prayer Book, is the key to Charles' ecclesiastical policy. 
It was his duty, he asserted, not to suffer unnecessary 
questions to be raised, which might nourish faction both 
in the church and commonwealth. The Articles were 
therefore to be taken in their literal sense and no one 
was hereafter to venture to put his own sense or com- 
ment on their meaning. Men were, in short, to hold 



68 The Personal Government of Charles I. 1629. 

their tongues on the controversy of the day. Such a 
settlement was undoubtedly better than the refusal of 
all liberty of speech which the Commons wished to esta- 
blish, because it avoided the infliction of any penalty 
upon opinion. But it was necessarily a settlement which 
would be one-sided in operation. To the Calvinist the 
doctrine of predestination was part of his creed which 
could not be buried in silence without hazarding the 
rest. His opponent simply held that it was a question 
which no one could possibly understand, and which 
therefore ought not to be discussed in the pulpit. 

Section II. 

The Breach between the King and the Commons. 

When the Commons met, they first turned their at- 
tention to the question of tonnage and poundage. On 
the one hand they waived their appeal to 
^i.Ve^edng ^^^ Petition of Right. On the other hand 
of the the king waived his claim to demand pay- 

Houses. , , . -, . , r . 

ment under the judgment m the case of im- 
positions. He asked them to vote him the duties and 
leave the question of legality unsettled. 

Unluckily, this question, difficult in itself, was com- 
plicated by another. Rolle, one of the merchants whose 

goods had been seized, was a member of the 
§2. Roiie's House of Commons, and the Commons ar- 

pnvilege. 

gued that whatever might have been done 
to the other merchants, the custom-house officers had no 
right to touch the property of a member of their House. 
The whole subject was, however, postponed till the state 
of religion had been taken into consideration. 

The vehemence of the Commons rose at once to fever 
pitch. New ideas had been broached, new ceremonies 



1629. Bread I between the King and Commons. 69 

introduced. It would have been hard enough 

for them to swallow the notion that all men . ? 3- Religious 

innovations. 

could not believe as they did on the subject 
of predestination. But it seemed intolerable that clergy- 
men should be found to speak of priests and altars. In 
Durham Cathedral especially, there had been great 
changes, and the services had been made very much 
what they are in cathedrals at the present day. Parts of 
the service were sung which had not been sung before, 
and the communion table, which had formerly stood at 
the north door, and had been moved into the middle of 
the choir when required for the communion, had been 
permanently fixed at the east end of the chancel. 

The Commons flung themselves first upon the doc- 
trinal difference. They declared that their interpretation 
of the Articles was true, and that every 
other interpretation was false. They could \^- Position of 

^ ' the Commons. 

not bear to hear that the belief of the nation 
was to be settled by the clergy apart from the laity. 
Then they proceeded to deal with the ceremonial changes. 
They summoned the authors of these innovations to 
answer as culprits at the bar. 

Before the delinquents could arrive in London some 
time must elapse, and the House turned back to the ques- 
tion of tonnage and poundage. They applied themselves 
to it with minds inflamed by the ecclesiastical 
debates. To give the king these duties was, ? s- Privilege 
as they believed, to place means in his 
hands to lay the English Church captive at the feet of 
the Pope. And yet it was difficult to meet the king on 
any broad ground. Charles was strong in his reference 
to the Judges, and though it might be a political necessi- 
ty that the House of Commons should set aside a doctrine 
.naintained by the Judges, it involved a breach of con- 



70 The Personal Government of Charles I. 1629. 

stitutional arrangements which would completely alter 
the balance of power in the State. It seemed easier to 
make their attack upon the point of privilege, and they 
summoned the custom-house officers who had seized 
Rolle's goods to answer for their insolence. 

So far, under Ehot's leadership, the House had gone. 
Yet this particular claim to privilege, whether technically 
right or not, was outrageous. Rolle's goods 
ind Pym. ^^^ ^^^^ Seized when Parliament was not 

sitting. The House of Commons was not 
thereby deprived of his services for an instant, and if 
special aid was to be given to Rolle, it would follow that 
means might be found to enable a merchant who was a 
member of the House to escape payment when nothing 
could be done for another merchant who was in a less 
fortunate position. Of all members in the House there 
was none, not even Eliot, whose patriotism was under 
less suspicion than John Pym. In opposition to the 
ecclesiastical policy of the government he went as far as 
any man, and he had taken his full share in the discus- 
sions which led to the Petition of Right. Yet now he 
distinctly refused to follow Eliot. " The liberties of this 
House," he said, "are inferior to the liberties of this 
kingdom. To determine the privileges of this House is 
but a mean matter, and the main end is to establish 
possession of the subjects." Pym's advice, in short, was 
to meet the difficulty in the face, to claim for all men the 
right of refusing to pay the duty till it had been voted by 
Parlianient. 

Pym's advice had the merit of founding the inevitable 
quarrel on broad grounds in which all men were equally 
March 2 Concerned. The House chose to follow 

§ 7. Adjourn- Eliot. Charles refused to allow his officers 

ment of the , , , , , , ^, , , , 

House. to be called to the bar. They had but 



1629. Breach between the King and Commons. 71 

obeyed his orders, and they must not suffer for 
their obedience. He commanded an adjournment of 
the House to March 2, and entered into private nego- 
tiations with the leading members, in the hope that 
means of escaping the difficulty might yet be discovered. 

The negotiations came to nothing, and on the appointed 
day the Commons met, only to receive a fresh order for 
adjournment. There were those amongst 
them who, believing that a dissolution was in th^""""'* 
imminent, determined to make a declaration ^°"'^- 
which should serve as an appeal to the people. As the 
Speaker was preparing to leave the chair, two members, 
Holies and Valentine, stepped rapidly forward, and held 
him down by force, whilst Eliot stood up to put to the 
vote a motion which he had drawn up in concert with 
his friends. Amidst tumult and confusion, the stormy 
debate, if debate it can be called, proceeded. A rush 
was made to set the Speaker free. Another rush was 
made to keep him in durance. The doors were locked, 
and one of the members put the key in his pocket. 
When order was at last restored, and Eliot proposed to 
put his resolutions to the vote, neither Speaker nor clerk 
would take the responsibility of reading them. At last, 
just as the king was approaching the door with an armed 
force. Holies, who had a copy of the resolutions in his 
pocket, read them amid shouts of assent ^ 

The resolutions were plain enough to be understood 
of all men. Whoever brought in innovations in religion, 
or introduced opinions disagreeing from 
those of the true and orthodox Church; ? 9- 'i'he three 

resolutions. 

whoever advised the levy of tonnage and 
poundage without a grant from Parliament; whoever 
voluntarily paid those duties ; was to be counted an 
enemy to the kingdom and a betrayer of its liberties. 



72 The Personal Government of Charles I. 1629. 

Endof the ^^ ^^^ shouts of " Aye, aye !" rang out on 

Parliament. every side, the doors were flung open, and 
the members poured forth in a throng. For more than 
eleven years no Parliament met again in England. 

Those who had led the opposition by which Charles' 
hopes were frustrated, were marked out for vengeance. 

The Petition of Right needed additional 
mentof""'^ ' buttresscs before it could form a barrier 
Cliamj'.srs against the sovereign's will. Chambers, 

one of the merchants who had refused pay- 
ment of the duties, was brought before the Star Chamber 
for the utterance of a few rash words in contempt of the 
privy council, and was sentenced to a fine of 2,000?., 
and to an imprisonment which lasted for many years. 
Eliot, with those who had supported him on the day of 
the adjournment, was thrown into prison, and brought 
before the Court of King's Bench. The cause of com- 
mitment was signified, and the provisions of the Petition 
were complied with. But the Petition had omitted to 
state under what conditions a prisoner ought to be ad- 
mitted to bail, and Charles, by a mixture of violence and 
persuasion, procured from the Judges an offer of bail 
upon terms which the prisoners declined to accept. 
When the case came on for trial the prisoners were 
charged with riot and sedition. True to Eliot's princi- 
ples, they refused to acknowledge that any court had a 
right to meddle with actions done in Parliament. The 
Judges acknowledged that they had no authority to 
interfeue with regular parliamentary proceedings. But 
the charge was that these members had taken part in a 
riot and sedition, and the judges held that riot and sedi- 
tion could never be held to be a parliamentary proceed- 
ing. As Eliot and the others still refused to answer, fine 
and imprisonment were imposed upon them. 



1629. Breach between the King and Commons. 73 

Eliot's comrades made their submission actually or 
tacitly one by one, and were allowed again to mingle in 
the world. Eliot alone remained honorably , „,. , 

g 12. Eliot s 

obdurate. His was the one unbending will political 
which never could be broken. Not one 
word would he speak which could be tortured into an ac- 
knowledgment that any power on earth could interfere 
with the supremacy of Parhament over the words and 
actions of its members. There was to be one spot on 
earth which the king's authority could not reach. To 
claim such an independence was to claim more than in- 
dependence. If Parliament was not subject to the king, 
it would soon become his master. That was the issue 
which before long was to be fought out in England. 
Eliot was in his generation the first, the greatest champion 
of the doctrine that Parliament was the controlling 
power of the constitution, the doctrine which had been 
in abeyance during the Tudor reigns, but which had 
been acknowledged fitfully but effectually in earlier 
days. No doubt there was a difference between the 
parliamentary supremacy of the fifteenth century and 
the parliamentary supremacy claimed in the seventeenth. 
In the Mediseval Parliaments the Lords had led and the 
Commons had followed. Eliot would have had the 
Commons to lead and the Lords to follow. The Upper 
House in the days of Charles I. was but a shadow of its 
former self. It had suffered from the proscriptions of 
the Tudors ; had suffered still more from the numerous 
and sometimes unworthy creations of the Stuarts. The 
Lower House had become the main depository of the 
national dignity and of the national will. 

Of the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy Eliot was 
now to become the martyr. Cooped up in the Tower 
without air or exercise, his health gave way. From his 
G 



74 The Personal Government of Charles I. 1629. 

pitiless gaolers no relaxation was to be 
§i3.'De?th hoped. His weakened form and sunken 
of Ehot. cheek soon gave evidence of the consump- 

tion which was wasting his strength within. In Decem- 
ber, 1632, after an imprisonment of three years and a 
half, the soul of the patriotic orator passed away. Charles, 
vindictive to the end, refused him even the privilege of 
a burial in his Cornish home. " Let the body of Sir 
John Eliot," he answered to a request from the dead 
man's children, "be buried in the place where he 
died." 

Section III. 

The Beginnings of Unparliamentary Government. 

If Charles had been asked whether he intended to 
tread the law and constitution under foot, he would have 

shrunk back with horror at the thought. He 
tional posi- "' would havc replied that he was in truth the 
Commons. supportcr of the law. Always, in theory, 

and, since the accession of the House of 
Tudor, in practice as well, Parliament had been but the 
great council of the king. The king had been the centre 
of government, the acting power round which all else re- 
volved. What the Commons now demanded was to take 
his place, to keep him short of money till he would 
comply with their wishes, and to render him powerless 
by calling his ministers to account when they did what 
the Commons considered to be illegal. Not only the 
authority of the king but the decision of the Judges was 
to be swept aside. And all this was to be done in order 
that freedom of thought, except so far as it found favor 
in the eyes of the dominant majority, might be stamped 
out in England : that no one might print a book or 



1629. Unparliavientary Government. 75 

preach a sermon without the leave of the House of Com- 
mons. 

Charles was not wrong in dissolving such a Parlia- 
ment. It had done its work in preparing the great 
Petition ; and if Charles could have rallied 
Eno-land round him by a wiser policy than ? 2-. Charles' 

o •' . position. 

he was, unfortunately, capable of conceiving, 
he might well have waited a few years for its ratification 
by another Parliament. Unluckily he was incapable of 
taking such a step. He did not know that there was 
truth in the midst of his opponents' errors. He did not 
know that his own pohcy was liable to the gravest ex- 
ception. Above all, he did not know that, even if he 
were possessed of all wisdom, he could not govern per- 
manently without the good-will of that nation which 
Parliament represented. He did not acknowledge to 
himself that he meant to rule permanently without Par- 
liament. But he ordered that no man should petition 
him to summon another, and as years rolled on his mind 
grew more and more accustomed to think of Parliament 
as a mere excrescence on the constitution, and of the 
public opinion on which it rested as a wild beast to be 
kept down. He fancied that he v/as copying his Tudor 
predecessors. In reality he was most false to the great 
principles of Henry and Elizabeth. The lonely silent 
man, keeping at a distance all who were not of the imme- 
diate circle of his privileged attendants could never play 
the part of the frank and hearty sovereigns who had court- 
ed popularity as the very life-blood of their government. 
A time must have come when the supremacy of public 
opinion which had been tacitly recognized by Henry 

VII. and Elizabeth would exercise an , ^ j. 

{) 3. Condi- 
avowed control through the House of Com- tionsofpar- 
, . , . - , Hamentary 

tnons as the representative body or the government. 



76 The Personal Government of Charles I. i^^jq. 

nation. It is easy to see that the blunders of Charles' 
reign had done much to hasten the change. But 
it is certain that to transfer supremacy to the House 
of Commons on the terms on which Ehot wished to 
transfer it, would have been to establish a gross tyranny. 
It is notorious that Henry and Elizabeth were always 
ready to hear advice from all sides. Whatever there 
was elsewhere, in their council chamber there was liberty 
of speech. If the House of Commons was to step into 
their place, there must be liberty of speech outside as 
well as inside the walls of Parliament. A Parliament 
stereotyping upon the country a particular form of reli- 
gious or political belief which happened to be popular at 
the time would degenerate into the most odious of des- 
potisms. The mouths of the counsellors whose work it 
is insensibly to change public opinion would be closed. 
The establishment of Parliamentary supremacy in 1688 
was a noble work. But it would not have been a noble 
work if it had stood alone. It came accompanied by the 
abolition of the censorship of the press, and by the 
Toleration Act. A free press and a free pulpit were 
limitations on the parliamentary despotism as effectual 
as the tacitly acknowledged right of insurrection had 
been upon the kingly despotism of the middle ages. 

Such ideas are universally accepted in the present 
day. In the seventeenth century they were but strug- 
gling into existence. Charles and his minis- 
i 4. Charles and j-gj-s saw the necessity of resisting the eccle- 

his ministers. _ .,_... ^ „ 

siastical tyranny of the House of Commons. 
But they fancied they could resist by refurbishing the 
weapons of old authority, and by establishing a system 
of equal despotism. As far as possible they would act 
according to law. But if the law failed them they could 
always fall back on the prerogative, which they interpre- 



1629. Unparliamentary Government. 77 

ted as giving power to the king to provide for the safety 
of the nation, when he was not expressly forbidden by 
law to do any special act which he wished to do. As the 
Judges were appointed and dismissed by the crown : as 
the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission could 
fine and imprison at discretion, and as Parliament was 
not there to complain, Charles was practically absolute 
in all matters in which he cared to be absolute. But 
there can be no doubt that he believed his to be a legal 
government, and that he prided himself particularly on 
his respect for the law. 

For some years, three statesmen, Weston, 
Laud, and Wentworth governed England in ^s- Three 

' ° ° statesmen. 

Charles' name. 

Of the three, Weston was of the least importance. As 
Lord Treasurer his first thought, like the first thought 
of his predecessor, Middlesex, was for eco- . „ 

'■ g 6. Weston, 

nomy. Buckmgham s wasteful expenditure Lord Trea- 
had left him a large legacy of debt, and he 
did all that he could to clear it off. The subsidies voted 
in 1628 did much, and in 1630 he discovered that all 
men holding lands worth 40/. a year ought to have been 
knighted at the coronation, if they were not knights 
already. Fines imposed on hundreds of men who had 
neglected this duty brought money into the exchequer. 
The act was unquestionably within the letter of the law. 
and it received the express sanction of the Court of 
Exchequer, though it was not likely to increase the popu- 
larity of the government. By this and similar contri- 
vances Weston paid off much of the debt, and brought 
the revenue and expenditure nearly on a level. He 
knew well that to save himself from fresh debt he must 
keep the king at peace. Peace was made at once with 
France in 1629 ; but peace with Spain was not brought 



78 TJie Personal Government of Charles I. 1629. 

about till the end of 1630. The king was greatly dis- 
tressed at abandoning the cause of his sister, and was 
every year entering, after the manner of his father, 
into fresh negotiations for the restitution of the Palati- 
nate. Weston humored Charles, joined in forwarding 
the negotiations, and was always ready with some good 
reason why they should not end in war. For the moral 
and spiritual interests of Protestantism on the Continent 
he cared nothing. He was suspected, probably with 
truth, of being a Roman Catholic at heart. His pohcy 
was exclusively devoted to enriching the country. If 
commerce flourished and men were making money, they 
would not be likely, he thought, to grumble against the 
king. 

If Weston was the king's oracle so far as the material 

wants of the nation were concerned, Laud, now Bishop 

of London, was his spiritual adviser. He had grown up 

to regard with horror the dogmatism of Cal- 

slshop of vinism, and he believed that disputes about 

ndon. religious questions were likely to overthrow 

the commonwealth. He like his contemporaries, never 
rose into the conception of liberty of thought as the only 
possible remedy for the evil which he dreaded. When 
Eliot cried out for the enforcement of unity of belief, 
Laud cried out for the enforcement of uniformity of cere- 
monial. " I labored nothing more," he afterwards said, in 
defence of his proceedings, "than that the external public 
worship of God — too mucfe shghted in most parts of this 
kingdom — might be preserved, and that with as much 
decency and uniformity as might be ; being still of 
opinion that unity cannot long continue in the Church, 
when uniformity is shut out at the church door." In all 
the complex varieties of Puritanism the heart of man is 
addressed through the intellect. Laud addressed it 



1629. Unparliainentary Government, 79 

through the eye. External order and disciphne, the 
authority of existing law and of existing governors, were 
the tests to which he appealed. Genius, he had none, 
no power of sympathy with characters opposed to his 
own, no attractive force whatever. Men were to obey 
for their own good, and to hold their tongues. 

If Laud was greater than Weston, Wentworth was 
greater than Laud. When the Petition of Right was 
granted he passed easily and naturally into ^ ^ wentworth 
the kincr's service as President of the Coun- President of 

• . , ., 1 • the North. 

cil of the North, a special tribunal exercis- 
ing almost unlimited authority beyond the Humber. 
As long as Buckingham lived, and for a year after his 
death, he had no place in the general government of 
England. Only in November, 1629, did he enter the 
privy council. It is easy to see that the events of the 
session of that year must have exercised a decisive influ- 
ence on his mind. In the session of 1628 he had taken 
the lead in resistance to the violent measures which had 
been called forth by the prosecution of a war which he 
regarded as impolitic and unwise. But he must have 
regarded with the utmost detestation the claim of the 
Commons to force the king to establish an ecclesiastical 
inquisition into the holding of opinions which he himself 
shared. If Eliot wished to found authority on public 
opinion, Wentworth contemned public opinion alto- 
gether. Authority must be founded on intellect, not 
on opinion, and of all living intellects he believed 
his own to be the first. Nor was it simply to the 
maintenance of power that he looked. " Justice without 
respect of persons," might have been the motto of his 
life. Nothing called forth his bitter inchgnation like the 
claims of the rich to special consideration or favor. The 
rule of the House of Commons meant for him — not 



8o The Personal Government of Charles I. 1629. 

altogether without truth — the rule of the landowner and 
the lawyer at the expense of the poor. His entry into 
the council was marked by a series of efforts to make 
life more tolerable for those who were in distress. 
Justices of the peace were ordered to make a yearly re- 
port on the execution of the poor law, to say whether 
those who had no means of subsistence were relieved, 
and whether idle vagabonds were punished. The 
measure was accompanied by many others, not always 
very wise, but always well-intentioned, as far as can now 
be judged, for the relief of commerce, and for the general 
improvement of the condition of the population. Where 
Wentworth failed was in his contempt of popularity and 
in his contempt for law as a safe-guard of justice. 
Everything was to be done for the people, nothing by 
them. They must learn to take the good things which 
the government chose to send them, as they took the 
rain from heaven. There was to be no strengthening of 
the consciousness of right in the popular heart ; no drawing 
out of the love and sympathy of the governed. The 
blessings which the stern, isolated man was longing to 
spread around him came back to him in curses. 

y Section IV. — Ecclesiastical Parties. 

The first five years of unparliamentary government 
were on the whole years of peace and quiet. There 
were Star Chamber prosecutions and penal- 
^i."star°' ties for those who openly resisted the authori- 
?enSces ^^ ^^ ^^ king. In 1630 Alexander Leigh- 

ton, having written a virulent libel upon the 
bishops, was flogged and mutilated with merciless 
severity. In 1633 Henry Sherfield was fined for taking 
the law into his own hands, and breaking a church 
window which he held to be superstitious. But though the 



1630. Ecclesiastical Parties. 81 

government was undoubtedly unpopular in many quarters 
there is no sign of any general bitterness of feeling 
against it. 

There was no distinct breach of constitutional forms. 
Years were passing away without a Parliament, just as 
years had passed away in the preceding 
reign. But no one had said that Parlia- ^\ General 

° _ submission. 

ment was never to meet again. Nor was 
the bearing of the opposition in the last session such as 
to secure universal acquiescence. Pym had openly de- 
nounced Eliot's course as, at least, ill-timed, and many 
of the foremost men of former sessions ha 1 stood aloof 
from the uproar of the final scene. There was much, 
too, in the course of foreign affairs to soothe men's minds 
in England. The peace had restored commercial 
activity, and merchants who were making money rapidly 
had no time to agitate against the payment of tonnage 
and poundage. In 1630 the flood of Roman Catholic 
aggression Avas checked in Germany by the landing of 
Gustavus Adolphus, and good Protestants in England 
ceased to dread lest they should be faced by a triumph- 
ant papal league, mustering its forces from the shores of 
the Baltic to the Straits of Gibraltar. 

After all, too, the ecclesiastical changes introduced by 
Laud in these early years of his domination were not so 
very alarming. His power extended directly 
only over his own diocese of London, and ? 3- Laud's 

■' changes. 

though he was able to do much elsewhere 
with the king's aid, his suggestions were often evaded by 
reluctant or sluggish bishops. Even when he was most 
vigorous, though words likely to cause alarm frequently 
escaped his lips, he confined his actual efforts to compel- 
ling the observance of the Book of Common Prayer and 
to putting an end to that evasion of the rules of the 



82 The Personal Government of Charles 1. 1630. 

Church which had frequently been practised since 
Abbot's archbishopric had begun. On the whole Puri- 
tans submitted with more or less reluctance. Those who 
refused to do so were deprived of their appointments in 
the Church, 

Laud did not stand alone in his reverence for the 

Prayer Book. The respect for the calm sanctities of a 

life sustained and nourished by the spirit 

1 4. George which breathes in it found its chief expres- 

Herbert. ^ 

sion in George Herbert. Born of a noble 
house, he had aspired to lead a high and pure rehgious 
life, and to employ his talents in the service of the state. 
His ambition had acted as a disturbing influence on the 
current of his religious aspirations. His religious aspi- 
rations had held him back from devoting himself wholly 
to statesmanship. At last he recognized his true voca- 
tion. As parish priest at Bemerton, a little hamlet near 
Salisbury, almost under the shadow of the most graceful 
of English cathedrals, he taught men by his life to rever- 
ence whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are 
lovely and of good report. To Herbert the outward forms 
of church worship, the repeated prayer, the pealing 
organ, the painted window, were loved and reverenced 
as teaching the struggling soul to offer up its own wander- 
ing fantasy and to restrain itself within limits appointed by 
external authority. That which was to sink into his 
heart must first pass through the eye or the ear. Even 
the pavement of a church could be made to read a les- 
son to him who stepped upon it. 

Mark you the floor? That square and speckled stone, 
Which looks so firm and strong, 
Is Patience : 

And th" other black and grave, wherewith each one 
Is checkered all alone, 
Humility. 



1630. Ecclesiastical Parties. 83 

The gentle rising, which on either hand 
Leads to the Quire above, 
Is Confidence ; 
But the sweet cement, which in one sure band 
Ties the whole frame, is Love 
And Charity. 

Among the simple peasants of the Wiltshire valley- 
such teaching was not without its reward. The plough- 
man stopped in his daily toil and murmured a few words 
of prayer as he heard Herbert's bell sending forth its 
summons to common worship. From Herbert, and from 
such as Herbert, Laud had only support to look for. 
To them it was a pleasure to be under authority, and to 
be bidden to submit to rules out of which their submis- 
sive minds might draw some hidden sweetness. 

It was the fault of the House of Commons that its 
system would have found no room in the Church for 
Herbert. But if the Church was to remain 
unrent, room must be found in it for those §5- Richard 

' hibbes. 

who were very unlike Herbert.. Of all the 
Puritan preachers of the day no man stood higher than 
Richard Sibbes. Ever in the pulpit, amongst the lawyers 
of Gray's Inn, or at the University church at Cambridge, 
he did not shrink, as Herbert shrank, from contact with 
the world. Wherever men were thickest, wherever the 
spirit of evil was the strongest, his voice was raised. It 
was the Puritan gospel which he preached. In his ap- 
peals Christ was speaking, not through outward cere- 
monies or holy rites, but straight to the heart and con- 
science of the hearer, bidding him sink at once into re- 
pentance, in order that he might rise up into sanctifica- 
tion. Just as for Herbert the outward form was but the 
incitement to holiness of hfe, so with Sibbes the form of 
doctrine, the argument about grace and predestination 



84 The Pei'-sonal Government of Charles I. 1633. 

was but the mental framework in which the living spirit 
moved and worked. The element in the Puritan creed 
which stirred men's spirits most deeply was the doctrine 
of conversion, the firm conviction of an immediate di- 
vine action of the Holy Spirit upon the heart, and of His 
constant abiding presence in the midst of all trials and 
temptations. Like the other Puritans, Sibbes is distin- 
guished by his triumphant confidence in the issue of his 
activity. Herbert's melody, in its happiest tones, has 
always something sad and plaintive about it. Even 
Laud and Wentworth acknowledged to themselves that 
the chances were against them. Eliot in his prison, 
Sibbes in his pulpit, are jubilant with exultation. Church 
arrangements, state institutions have been shattered 
before and will be shattered again. But the sad con- 
sciousness of sin, the joyful sense of righteousnes and 
purity, are unassailable by outward force. To place 
such men as Sibbes under such men as Laud is to reverse 
the natural order of things. The time will come when 
the strong man will burst his chains, and will make him- 
self master of the house. 

As yet there seemed no likelihood of this. Sibbes 

and his fellow-workers were compelled sometimes, 

rather unwillingly, to use the whole of the 

A.D. 1633. 

§ 6. Puritan Prayer Book. What was worse still, a 

conformists. . , -i ^ n ^i • 

jealous eye was kept on all their movements. 
In 1627 Sibbes and four others were reprimanded for 
venturing to collect money for exiles from the Palatinate 
at a time when the king found such difficulty in raising 
the forced loan. In 1633 a heavier blow was dealt 
against him. With eleven others like-minded with him- 
self he had bought up Church property, which had been 
impropriated by laymen in earlier times, and used it to 
supply the needs of Puritan ministers and school-masters. 



1633- New England. 85 

At Laud's instance the whole scheme was referred to the 
Judges, who declared it to be illegal. A stop was put to 
this attempt to supply Puritan preachers. Yet Sibbes, 
though sorely grieved, never wavered for an instant in 
his devotion to the Church of which he was a minister. 
In a letter which he addressed to a friend who was think- 
ing of separating himself from it, he protested against 
the very thought. The Church of England, he said, 
was a true Church. Even those who thought the cere- 
monies to be evil were not justified in making a rent in 
the Church for that reason. The remedy would be worse 
than the disease. Let his friend leave his extravagant 
courses, and return "to the sacred communion of this 
truly evangelical Church of England " 

Such is the language of a leading Puritan teacher in 
1633. Its meaning is evident. There is a 
sense of dissatisfaction, but no actual es- estrange-^ 
trangement. The gulf between Laud and S,mSete 
the Puritans is not yet impassable. 

Section V. — New England. 

So little chance did there seem to be of changing the 
existing system, that some to whom it was altogether 
intolerable sought a refuge elsewhere. Ever since the 
reign of Elizabeth there had been those who 
regarded the English Church not as some- ? ^- T^^ ^^" 

° ° paratists. 

thing to be altered and modified, but as 
something to be abandoned by all true Christians. Of 
the various names by which these men have been known, 
that of Separatists best describes their position. They 
believed that each congregation of faithful men should 
separate itself from nominal Christians, and should form 
a community by itself, choosing its own ministers for 
convenience' sake, but not acknowledging any strict line 



86 The Personal Government of Charles I. 1620. 

of distinction between the clergy and laity. Few in 
numbers, and unpopular, from the contempt in which 
they held ordinary Christians, they were looked down 
upon by both parties in the Church. 

In 1608 a congregation of these men had emigrated to 

Holland, finally settling at Leyden. But they were ac- 

^, customed to country life, and town occupa- 

g 2. Ihe con- •' '- 

gregation of tions pressed hardly on them. The busy 
^^ ^"' world, with its loose and often sinful ways, 

offered temptations from which they would gladly escape, 
and many of them resolved to seek new homes in 
America, where they might be free to follow their ideal 
of a gospel life. 

On the coast of that which is now known as the United 

States, English settlers were already to be found. The 

colony of Virginia had struggled through terrible diffi- 

^, culties, and was now established as a to- 

g 3. The ' 

colony of bacco-planting, well-to-do community. But 

irginia. ^^ Virginians did not trouble themselves 

about the ideal of a gospel life, and the new settlers 
had to seek in colder and more northern regions for a 
home. 

In 1620 the emigrants, a hundred in all, "lifting up 
their eyes to heaven, their dearest country," sailed across 
the Atlantic, in the "Mayflower," in search 
Tiie voyage of of 3. spot in which to pass the remainder of 
flow'er^"^^" their earthly pilgrimage. Coming to an 
anchor in the broad bay which lies inside 
Cape Cod, they explored the coast before them. Novem- 
ber had come upon them with its cold snow-laden blasts. 
But they found a home at last — Plymouth, as they called 
it, after the last port which they had seen in England. 
Their troubles were not yet at an end. Disease, en- 
gendered by hardship, carried off half their numbers, 



1630. New Eiiv'and. 87 

and some fifty men, women, and children remained 
alone on that rugged and iron-bound coast, to form a 
nucleus for the New England of the future. 

For ten years little addition was made to their num- 
ber. Some few came out to join them. Others occupied 
the most promising positions around, to fish, 
to trade with the Indians, sometimes to g 5^' Ma?sa. 
plunder and to cheat them. The reopening chusetts 
of religious strife in England caused a fresh 
flow of emigration. In 1630 about a thousand Puritan 
men found their way across the "Atlantic, with John 
Winthrop at their head, and the Massachusetts settle- 
ments were firmly established. 

In all these settlements the principles of the Separa- 
tists were unquestioned. Outward forms 
and ceremonies were altogether thrust out |;ous^charac- 
from any place in worship. But it was not '^^ °^.^^^ 
in search of liberty that these men had 
crossed the ocean. The Bible was to them a code of 
law, and they had made up their minds strongly as to 
the interpretation to be placed on doubtful passages. 
He who would not accept their interpretation was to be 
banished from the colony. He who accepted it, but had 
sinned against the precepts which he acknowledged, was 
punished. One day Winthrop, who had been elected 
governor, came to a place named Hue's Cross. He 
ordered it at once to be named Hue's Folly, lest men 
should think that Jesuits had been there. We can fancy 
how he would have dealt with a living Jesuit. Within 
their own circle the colonists were upright, forbearing, 
kindly men, fearing God and tenderly loving one 
another. In 1633 no sane man would have predicted 
that men like these would soon be the masters of Eng- 
land. In the end of that very year a noted Separatist, 



88 The Reign of Thorough. ^^ZZ^ 

who had taken refuge in Holland, wrote a book with the 
suggestive title, "A Fresh Suit against Human Cere- 
monies." In the preface he argued that no danger 
could possibly come from the toleration of Separatists, 
on the ground that the great majority of the English 
people were well inclined towards the Prayer Book, 



CHAPTER V. 

THE REIGN OF THOROUGH. 

Section I. — Gtneral Enforcement of Conformity. 
In August 1633 Archbishop Abbot died, and Laud was 
immediately appointed as his successor. He had so 
long influenced the king in Church matters, 
gi.Laud that the change in title seemed likely to 

archbishop. ^^.^g j^.^^ ^^^ j.^^j^ increase of authority. 

Practically, however, the change was great. Out of his 
own diocese, he "had before only noticed accidentally 
things which displeased him. He now held himself 
bound by duty to notice everything. Whatever powers 
an archbishop might claim by ancient, even if forgotten, 
usage, he would put in force till the order of the Prayer 
Book was accepted by all. If there was anything doubt- 
ful in his claims, Charles was ready to support him with 
all the weight of the royal authority. 

Laud had scarcely taken possession of the see when 
he gave deep offence to the Puritans. In Somersetshire, 
as in many other parts of the kingdom, it 
Declaration was the custom to keep the anniversary of 
of Sports. ^^ dedication of a parish church with a 

feast. These feasts had often degenerated into drunken 



1633. General E^if or cement of Confonmty. 89 

revelry. The justices of the peace, supported by Chief 
Justice Richardson, attempted to put a stop to the cus- 
tom. The attempt was resisted by Laud as an interfer- 
ence with the right of the bishop to deal with ecclesiasti- 
cal matters. Richardson was summoned before the 
council, and sharply reprimanded by the archbishop. 
"I have almost," he said, as he came out, "been 
choked with a pair of lawn sleeves." Laud and the king 
thought, perhaps wisely, that if the justices of the peace 
did their duty, the drunkenness might be repressed, and 
the social gatherings continued. They followed up their 
decision with a more questionable step. They not only 
reissued the Declaration of Sports which had been issued 
in the late reign, to authorize the use of pastimes on 
Sunday afternoons, but they ordered all the clergy to 
read it publicly in their churches. To the Puritan the 
Declaration seemed to be an incitation to sin, a breach 
Qf the fourth commandment. Laud cared nothing for 
such scruples. He demanded obedience. 

Scarcely less offensive was a decision taken on the 
position of the communion table. By the canons, the 
table was to remain at the east end of the 
chancel, excepting when it was needed for ? 3- The com- 

,1 . , . , . . munion table. 

the communion, at which time it was to be 
placed in that part of the church or chancel from which 
the minister could be most conveniently heard. In 
practice it stood permanently at the east end in cathe- 
drals and in some parish churches, whilst in most parish 
churches it stood permanently in the midst of the chancel, 
or even in the nave. Laud's indignation was roused 
when he heard of the unseemly uses to which it was 
often put. Men laid their hats on it in time of service, 
or used it as a writing-table, upon which to transact the 
business of the parish. In a case brought before the 
H 



po The Reign of Thorough. 1633. 

council, the king explained away the canons by the in- 
terpretation that the bishop, or other ordinary authority, 
could alone determine where the table could most con- 
veniently be placed. The consequences of this decision 
were not immediately perceptible. But by degrees, at 
Laud's instigation, the bishops pressed on the removal 
of the table to the east end, and the surrounding of it 
with a raihng. That which meets the eye impresses the 
mind more than that which meets the ear : and hundreds 
of persons who cared little about Arminianism, or about 
the news of a fresh ceremony introduced into some 
distant cathedral, were roused to indignation when their 
own parish church put on a new appearance, and the 
table was, as it seemed to them, transmuted into an 
altar. 

Laud, too, was ungentle in all his doings. Rarely did 
he fail to demand the heaviest penalty for offences. One 
of the sturd-jst opponents of his system was. 
^4^Prynne's William Prynne, a learned barrister, who, 
sentence. j^ defiance of the archbishop, had poured 

forth book after book from his burning brain. His was 
a most unspiritual rehgion. As unsympathizing as Laud 
with the full hfe of human nature, he tried all things by 
the dry logic which was to him all-sufficient. Sometimes 
he would find a terrible sin in the wearing of long curls 
—love-locks as they were called — by men ; sometimes in 
drinking healths ; sometimes in wrong opinions on the 
subject of predestination. He now turned his attention 
to theatres. There was much room for the scourge of 
the satirist. Vile indecency tainted the highest drama- 
tic efforts of the time, and even the noblest characters 
could not be introduced upon the stage unless they were 
smothered in a foul morass of seething corruption. 
Prynne' s heavy work, Histrioniastix , or Scourge of 



1 634- General Enforce?nent of Conformity. 91 

Stage-players, was likely to convince no one who was not 
convinced already. Bringing every charge under the sun 
against the players, he held them responsible for every 
sin which the pages of history revealed to have been 
committed by their predecessors in Greece or Rome. 
From the players he turned to the government which 
had permitted the abuse, and he inserted words which 
were held to reflect on the queen, who had announced 
her intention of taking part in a theatrical representation 
at court at the time when the book was published, and 
had already shared in the rehearsals. After the publi- 
cation of ■ the book Prynne was sentenced in the Star 
Chamber to stand in the pillory, to lose his ears, and to 
imprisonment at the king's pleasure. He was also to be 
dismissed from the bar, and to be deprived of his univer- 
sity degrees. 

Prynne's sentence, outrageous as it was, was not re- 
ceived with that general indignation which it would have 
called forth two or three years later. The „ _, , 

•' § 5. The Inns 

Inns of Court had been roused by his whole- of Court 
sale condemnation of the drama to spend "^^' 
thousands of pounds on a gorgeous masque, which they 
presented to the king, and some who afterwards took the 
foremost part in resistance to the court joined now in 
approval of its measures. 

But it is not the lawyers' masque which will be the 
memorial to all time of Prynne's fault and of his suffer- 
ings. John Milton, the son of a London , , . 

. , , , . . , 1 ? 6. Milton's 

scrivener, had grown up, his mmd stamped Penseroso 
with thoughtful seriousness, but with no 
feelings of opposition to the rites of the Church of Eng- 
land. He could join in the praise of a prelate like An- 
drewes, the bishop whom Laud revered as a master. He 
could be carried away by the charms of musical 



92 The Reign of Thorough. 1634. 

harmonies and glowing color to write verses like 
these : — ■ 

But let my due feet never fail 

To walk the studious cloister's pale, 

And love the high embowed roof, 

With antique pillars massy-proof, 

And storied windows richly dight, 

Casting a dim religious light, 

There let the peahng organ blow, 

To the full-voiced quire below, 

In service high and anthems clear. 

As may with sweetness, through mine ear, 

Dissolve me into ecstasies 

And bring all Heaven before mine eyes. 

But he could not bow his high and self-sustained mind 
to look upon these harmonies as more than mere adjuncts 
to the food of his spiritual nature. He could not regard 
anything that was outward and sensible as giving the 
law within which he was to restrain his worship. With 
this thought before him he wrote the Comus. He would 
show that it was possible to be the author of a dramatic 
poem of which the action should revolve round the en- 
nobling thought of purity. But though acted in the 
presence, of one of the most royalist of the royalist peers, 
it was none the less a protest against Laud's admiration 
of mere external decency. The inward, the poet tells 
us, gives the law to the outward, not the outward to the 
inward. 

So dear to Heaven is saintly chastity 
That, when a soul is found sincerely so, 
A thousand liveried angels lackey her. 
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt. 
And in clear dream and solemn vision 
Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear, 



1 634' General Enforcement of Conformity. 93 

Till oft converse with heavenly habitants 
Begin to cast a beam on the outward shape. 
The unpolluted temple of the mind, 
And turn it by degrees to the soul's essence, 
Till all be made immortal. 

Meanwhile Laud was pursuing his course. Claiming 
the right as archbishop to inquire into the condition of 
every diocese of his province, he sent forth „ 

1 • fc • 1 r J -J T- 1 § 7. The me. 

his officials far and wide. Every clergyman tropoiiticai vi- 
who failed in conforming to the Prayer 
Book, who protested by word or deed against the removal 
of the communion table, who objected to bow his head 
when the sacred name of Jesus was uttered, was called 
in question, suspended, deprived, perhaps fined or im- 
prisoned. Unity of creed had been the idol of the 
Puritan. Unity of outward worship was the idol of Laud. 
As he told Wentworth, he was all for "thorough," the 
system of complete discipline on which his heart was set. 
The clergy were to be drilled as a sergeant drills his 
soldiers. Human nature rebelled against the yoke. 
Moderate men began to suspect that all this was but part 
of a design to bring England again under the papal 
domination. It was knowm that an emissary from Rome 
attached to the queen's court was frequently admitted to 
Charles' presence, and the effect of his pleadings was 
naturally exaggerated. There were some amongst 
Laud's followers who approached more nearly than he 
did to the Roman doctrine, and a few desertions from 
Protestantism startled England into a panic for which 
Laud's harsh and ill-advised proceedings were in the 
main responsible. 



94 The Reign of lliorough. 1634. 



Section II. — Ship-jnoney. 
Laud had alienated the thought of Englandc The 
king was busily alienating those who cared for its laws. 
His revenue almost equalled his expendi- 

A.D. 1634. '- ^ 

g I. Forest ture. But there were debts still to be paid, 

and every now and then there were extra- 
ordinary expenses to be met. Extraordinary means 
were used to gain money. Whole districts of land were 
claimed as part of the royal forests, on the ground of old 
and long-forgotten records. Fines were imposed upon 
noblemen and gentlemen who were thoroughly loyal to 
the crown, as the price at which they were allowed to 
retain estates which had been in the hands of their an- 
cestors for generations. 

The hardship of enforcing the forest laws, however, 

was far less generally felt than the hardship of enforcing 

ship-money. Weston, recently created Earl 

g 2. Charles Qf Portland, in his adoration of material 

wants a neet. ' 

prosperity, was always hankering after an 
alliance with Spain for the purpose of overthrowing the 
Dutch commercial supremacy. The commerce of the 
Dutch was far richer than that of the English, and their 
fisheries in the sea which divides England and Holland, 
brought in an enormous revenue. The navy of France, 
too, was growing under Richelieu's fostering care, and 
Charles, jealous of the rivalry of France, claimed the 
right of dominion over the Channel, as well as over the 
North Sea. A bundle of intercepted letters informed 
Charles that a scheme was under consideration by the 
Governments of France and Holland for an attack upon 
Dunkirk to the profit of France. He had no mind to 
see the whole of the southern shore of the Straits ot 
Dover in the hands of Lewis, and he felt much as all 



1 634' Ship-money. 95 

Englishmen would have felt a few years ago, if they had 
come upon the traces of a plot for handing over Antwerp 
to Napoleon III. The Spanish diplomatists hastened 
to take advantage of his dissatisfaction, and an agree- 
ment was negotiated by which Spain engaged to meet 
part of the expenses of vindicating Charles' claim, on 
the understanding that it was eventually to lead to war 
with the Dutch, and perhaps with the French as well. 

How was money to be found for the fleet? In 1626, 
and in the time of Queen Elizabeth, the , _, „ 

. , /~ 1, , 5 3 The first 

maritime counties had been called upon to ship-money 
furnish ships for the defence of the realm. ^" • 
That, however, had been in time of war, whilst England 
was now in the enjoyment of profound peace. Yet Noy, 
the attorney-general, declared that even as matters 
stood, such a course was in accordance with more 
ancient precedents. In 1634 writs were issued, com- 
manding that the ships should be found by the coast 
towns and counties. A few weeks later the counties were 
informed that they might, if they chose, provide money 
instead of ships, which would in that case be furnished 
out of the royal navy. In the summer of 1635 the fleet 
thus obtained put out to sea. But there was no enemy 
to fight. The Spanish money had not come. The King 
of Spain, impoverished in the midst of wealth, could not 
find the sum whi-ch he had offered to provide, and com- 
missioned his ambassador to make what excuse he could. 
Charles had no mind to stand alone in a war against the 
French and the Dutch, and the fleet returned in the 
autumn without having fired a shot. 

The sense of power in possessing a fleet once more 
was too much for Charles' iudfrment. 

A.D. 1635, 

Portland was now dead, and Noy was dead. § 4- The 
Rash counsels prevailed. A second writ ^^"°" ^" ' 



96 The Reign of Thorough. ^635. 

was issued, in which precedent was thrown to the winds. 
This time orders were sent, not to the maritime counties 
alone, but to every shire in England. "As all," the 
privy council declared, "are concerned in the mutual 
defence of one another, so all might put to their helping 
hands." Such an argument was undoubtedly not with- 
out its weight. No Chancellor of the Exchequer would 
think now-a-days of asking Hampshire and Yorkshire to 
provide for the expenses of the navy, whilst Worcester- 
shire and Derbyshire went free. But how was the plea 
likely to be received by men who believed that the navy 
was not needed for any national object at all ? Behind 
these reasonable doubts there was an argument more 
irresistible still. The king claimed to decide alone 
when he might act, unfettered by ordinary restraints of 
law, for the good of the nation. Such a claim might 
readily be allowed if it was confined to some special 
emergency when there was no time to summon Parlia- 
ment. But this last resource, known to the constitution 
as a desperate remedy in the extremest danger, was now 
becoming the ordinary rule. If the king was to judge 
when he might take money for ships, he would soon 
want to judge when he might take money for an army. 
Whatever precedents might say, it was impossible that 
a precedent could be admitted which would make Parlia- 
ment for ever unnecessary, and which would reduce the 
right of parliamentary taxation, the object of so many 
struggles, to a dead letter. 

Once more, in 1636, a fleet was set out. But resist- 
ance had been raised on every side. In February 1637 
Charles resolved to consult his judges. He 

A. D. 1637. J i> 

^5. The Judges prided himself particularly on acting accord- 
ing to law, and in referring his rights to the 
opinion of the Judges. Already in the course of his 



1 6 3 7 • Ship-money. g 'j 

reign he had dismissed two Chief Justices, and had sus- 
pended a Chief Baron, for venturing to disagree with him. 
In this, as in so many other things, it was enough for him 
if he kept within the letter of the law, even whilst he was 
wholly disregarding its spirit. He now asked the Judges 
whether he might not raise ship-money when it was 
needed for the defence of the kingdom, and whether, in 
that case, the king w^as not the sole judge, both of the 
danger, and when and how it was to be prevented and 
avoided ? Ten of the Judges answered in the affirmative 
at once, and the other two signed their reply on the 
ground that they were bound by the decision of the ma- 
jority. Much to the surprise of the Judges, that which 
they believed to have been dehvered as a private opinion, 
was published by the king in every county in England. 
Charles doubtless thought the opposition v/ould come 
to an end. John Hampden, a Buckinghamshire squire, 
who had taken a busy, though a silent part 
in the early Parliaments of the reign, thought len's re^st- 
otherwise. He was assessed only at twenty ^"'^^• 
shillings. But in that twenty shillings was the whole 
question, whether the king or the House of Commons 
should be supreme in England. If the king might take 
what money he pleased, he might consequently do as he 
pleased. If the House of Commons could refuse to 
grant money needed for the necessities of government, 
they could mould the government after their pleasure. 
Only one view of the case was possible for Hampden. 
The king had alienated not merely the House of Com- 
mons, but the nation. Was the king to govern in oppo- 
sition to the nation ? Hampden refused to support so 
mischievous a doctrine, and flatly refused to pay. 

Hampden's case was argued in the Exchequer Cham- 
ber. Of the twelve Judges two only pronounced deci- 



98 The Reign of Thorough. 1637. 

dedly in his favor. Three supported him on 
^'^,']iidg- technical grounds alone. Seven declared 

mwit against ^^ f^^Qj. ^f ^J^g ^.^^^^^ ^g f^^ ^g ^^le JudgeS 

were concerned, there never need be an 
Enghsh Parliament again. Ship-money continued to 
be levied, but the opposition grew louder every day. 
The decision of the Judges was openly ascribed to timi- 
dity or obsequiousness. The arguments of Hampden's 
counsel were welcomed as the true reading of the law 
from one end of England to the other. 

Section III,— Trymtef Bastwick, and Burton. 

Three years had wrought a great change in England. 
In 1634 Prynne's ears had been lopped off without 
A. D. 1637. causing any extraordinary excitement, and 
of fedhTcffn ^^^ Inns of Court had signalized their detes- 
Engiand. tation of his principles by spontaneously 

offering a masque to the king. In 1637 Prynne received 
a fresh sentence, and this time he had no reason to com- 
plain of the want of popular sympathy. 

He did not now stand alone. A violent and scurril- 
ous attack upon the existing church government from 
his pen might be compared with two other 
Prynne" ^"*^^^ "^ equally violent and scurrilous attacks from 
and'Bu*iton. ^^^ P^^^ ^^ ^ physician named Bastwick, 
and a clergyman named Burton. The reply 
of the Star Chamber was to send them to the pillory, to 
sentence them to the loss of their ears, to condemn them 
to a fine of 5,000/. apiece, and to imprisonment for life. 

Rash and intemperate words were to be met by brutal 

deeds. But the spirit of opposition was already roused. 

As the three passed from the prison to the 

execution'! pillory in Palace Yard, the people strewed 

herbs and flowers in their path. " They all 



1 63 7- Frynne, BastiaicJi, and Burto7i. 99 

three," we are told by a contemporary, " talked to the 
people. Bastvvick said they had collar-days in the king's 
court"— days, that is to say, when the knights of the 
Garter wore their collars — "and this was his collar-day 
in the king's palace. He was pleasant and witty all the 
time. Prynne protested his innocence to the people of 
what was laid to his charge. Mr. Burton said it was the 
happiest pulpit he ever preached in. After two hours 
the hangman began to cut off their ears. He began 
with Mr. Burton's. There were very many people. 
They wept and grieved much for Mr. Burton, and at the 
cutting off each ear there was such a roaring as if every- 
one of them had at the same instant lost an ear." 
Bastwick gave the hangman a knife, and making use of 
his surgical knowledge, taught him to cut off his ears 
quickly, and very close, that he might come there no 
more. The hangman hewed off Prynne's ears, " which 
had been roughly lopped off threeyearsbefore," whichput 
him to much pain ; " but after he stood long on the scaffold 
before^his head could be got out, butthat was a shame." 

Popular sympathy was not confined to London. As 
the three passed through the country to their respective 
prisons, men flocked to greet them as mar- 
tyrs. " The common people," we are told, fymSrhy^^ 
" are extremely compassionate towards 
them." No ordinary prison was thought likely to re- 
move them sufficiently far from friendly looks and hands, 
and Prynne was finally sent to Jersey, Burton to Guern- 
sey, Bastwick to the Scilly Isles. 

Popular indignation found due expression in literature. 
In the Comus, written in 1634, Milton had contented 
himself with setting forth his own view of 

*=• A.D. 1638. 

spiritual life. In the Lycidas, written in § 5- Milton's 
163 S, he burst forth into a stirring protest -^"^^ 



L.ofC. 



loo The Reign of Thorough. 1638. 

against the evil system which was crushing out the vigor 
of religion. Under the thin disguise of the terms of a 
shepherd's hfe, he bemoans a young friend who had 
been lately drowned. But he has other passions in his 
soul than that of sorrow. The shepherds of the people^ 
or, in plain English, the clergy, moved his indigna* 
tion : — 

How well could I have spared for thee, young swain, 

Enow of such as for their bellies' sake. 

Creep and intrude, and climb into the fold ! 

Of other care they little reckoning make 

Than how to scramble at the shearer's feast 

And shove away the worthy bidden guest, 

Blind mouths ! that scarce themselves know how to hold 

A sheep-book, or have learnt aught else the least 

That to the faithful herdsman's art belongs. 

What recks it them ? What need they? They are sped ; 

And when they list, their lean and flashy songs 

Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw. 

The hungry sheep look up and are not fed, 

But swollen with wind and the rank mist they draw, 

Rot inwardly and foul contagion spread. 

The wolf of Rome too was busy : 

Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw 
Daily devours apace, and nothing said. 

But it would not be for ever. The two Houses of Parlia- 
ment would meet some day, and the edifice would 
crumble to the dust. 

But that two-handed engine at the door 
Stands ready to strike once and strike no more. 

The feeling of those days left its trace on political 
phraseology. The English constitution, like all other 



1638. Weniworfh in Ireland. loi 

constitutions of Western Europe, knew of ^^.^^ 

estates of the realm gathered round the Lords and 

, _ , , ,, 1 . Commons. 

king. In England, as all men knew m 
1629, the three estates were the Lords Spiritual, the 
Lords Temporal and the Commons. In 1640 men talked, 
as uninstructed men talk now, of King, Lords, and 
Commons, as the three estates of the realm. The blunder 
had a grim wisdom of its own. It meant that English- 
men, if they could help it, would be ruled no longer by 
the clergy, and that they would only be ruled by the 
king if he acted in combination with the Lords and the 
Commons. They had not yet come to ask that the 
Lords and Commons should rule without the king. But 
they were weary of a system under which the king was 
everything and the nation nothing. 

Section IV. — Wentworth in Ireland. 

It was only at the close of Elizabeth's reign that Ire- 
land was brought under real subjection to the crown of 
England. Under James the process of re- ^ ^ ^^^^ 
ducing tTie various tribes under a settled § i. The 

• n Irish tribes. 

and orderly government was contmually 
advancing. But the task was a hard one. Each tribe 
in the wilder parts of Ireland possessed more lands than 
it could cultivate, if, indeed, it cared for anything more 
than to pasture cattle upon them. The chiefs, with their 
warlike followers, did very much as they pleased, made 
■war when they liked, and took their subjects' property 
when they liked. 

The EngUsh government resolved to establish a 
better state of things. Peaceable cultivators ^ ^ ^^^^^ ^^ 
settled on their own property would be the English 

, 111 1-11. government. 

better off themselves, and would be hkely to 

make better subjects. The government therefore 



I02 The Reign of Thorough. 1610. 

deliberately set itself to bring into existence a class of 
native proprietors. Yet change, though it be for the 
better, is always dangerous, and unless the government 
were strong as well as just, there was a risk that the 
chiefs and their armed followers would rise in insurrec- 
tion before the change was accomplished. 

Now-a-days the government would ship off a few 
regiments to Dublin to maintain order. In James' 
reign the government had no regiments to 
f's'Thr* send, and no money with which to raise 

plantation of them. An excuse was furnished by the re- 
bellion and flight of the two chiefs by whom 
the greater part of Ulster was ruled. The north of Ire- 
land was declared to be forfeited to the crown, and was 
given over to Enghsh and Scottish colonists. Lands, it 
is true, were assigned to some of the natives. But they 
had no reason to trust the intruders, and the change in 
all the conditions of their life was too sudden to allow 
them to adapt themselves easily to it. Even if this had 
not been the case, there was the feeling rankling in their 
bosoms, that under the cover of legal forms which were 
unintelligible to them, they had been stripped of the 
lands of their fathers. 

The religious difference, too, was still a source of 

serious danger. The man who looked to the Pope for 

his creed was likely to look to the King of 

2 4. Confu- ^.^,. ... -^T ■ • -11 

sionin Spam for his politics. Yet It was impossible 

Ire .^nd. ^^ compel a whole nation to change its belief, 

and, with some intermittent efforts at persecution, the 
government was obliged to trust in the main to persua- 
sion. It was to trust to a broken reed. The Protestant 
Church of Ireland was in utter confusion. Its lands and 
income had been scrambled for by self-seeking ad- 
venturers till there was scarcely a parish or even a 



1638. Wentworth in Ireland. 103 

bishopric in Ireland of which the incumbent was not re- 
duced to poverty. It was only by heaping upon one man 
offices so numerous that it was hopeless for him to dream 
of fulfilling his nominal duties, that it was possible to in- 
duce any one to accept an Irish benefice at all. The 
natives gazed upon the spectacle without respect, and at- 
tended mass in secret. 

In the summer of 1633 Wentworth arrived at Dublin 
to undertake the government of Ireland. He brought 
with him a perfectly fearless spirit, a rapid 
and clear intelligence, and a firm delermina- g^'g^Weut- 
tion to establish orderly rule in that country, ]^eputy!^°'^'^ 
which had known less of it than any other 
country in Europe. He brought with him, too, a con- 
temptuous disregard for that sense of obedience to law 
v/hich it is the first duty of every wise government to culti- 
vate. It was enough for him if the right thing was done. 
How it was done he cared but little. 

Whatever the merits and defects of the new Lord Deputy 
may have been, it was unfortunate for him that he could 
not legislate without the Irish Parliament. In 

A. D. 1634. 

England the voice of Parhament was com- g 6. The Irish 

1 ,, ^1 • r Parliament. 

mg to be more than ever the voice 01 a 
unitednation. In Ireland there wasno nation to represent. 
There were members who were elected by the native pop- 
ulation, and members who were elected by the English 
colonists. There was no common feeling, no possibility of 
combining for any rational object. What Ireland wanted 
was a government like the government of India at the pre- 
sent day, supporting itself on an irresistible army, and 
guided by statesmanlike intelligence. Wentworth saw this 
with a glance. In i634he called a Parhament, threatened it, 
cajoled it, appealed to the interest of each set of men in it 
separately, till he got the money which he wanted. A 



ji04 The Reign of Thorough. 16330' 

well-paid, well-disciplined army was the result. The 
thing was well done. The manner in which it was done 
was not so well. The evil was perhaps inevitable, as 
matters stood. As much cannot be said of Wentworth's 
mode of treating the popular demands. Before he came 
to Ireland the king had offered certain conditions in re- 
turn for the expected grant of subsidies. Wentworth 
took upon himself the responsibility of breaking the 
king's promises by simply refusing to fulfil those which he 
did not think fit to keep. It is probable that he seriously 
believed that Ireland would be the better if those promi- 
ses were not kept. But there is nothing to show that he had 
any conception of the demoralizing influence exercised by 
a government which openly evades its engagements. 

As far as material interests were concerned, Ireland 
a 7 Ireland ^^^^ nevcr been so prosperous as it became 
under Went- under Wentworth. Wealth took the place 

worth. '- 

of poverty, trade and commerce sprang up 
where none had existed before. The flax industry of the 
North of Ireland owes its origin to Wentworth's protect- 
ing hand. His ecclesiastical system was the ecclesiasti- 
cal system of Laud, though it was put in force with rather 
more discretion. Roman Catholics and Puritans were 
repressed, whilst a reforming hand was laid upon the 
Church itself. Churches and schools were built and re- 
paired. The revenue of the clergy was snatched out of 
the hands of those who had filched it away, and a begin- 
ning was made of the establishment of a body of minis- 
ters who might represent the English ecclesiastical sys- 
tem with decency in the eyes of the natives. In the civil 
and military administration of the country, incompetent 
or self-seeking officials were weeded out of the service, 
and were replaced by others in whom the Deputy could 
place implicit confidence. 



1 634' We?ttworth in Irela?id. 105 

That Wentworth should make many enemies in such 
a process is quite intelligible. But he made far more 
enemies than was absolutely necessary. His 
harsh and overbearmg nature could not overbearing 
brook opposition, and the manner in which t^nip^r. 
he treated those whom he distrusted caused more angry 
feeling than the mere fact of his determination to dis- 
pense with their services. 

The wrongs done to the Enghsh officials at Dublin 
caused a profound sensation in England. The charge 
which Irishmen mainly bring against Went- 
worth is that he urged on a plan for coloni- ^9. '^Proposed 
zing Connaught after the king had solemnly plantation of 

° ^ t. , Connaught, 

promised that it should not be colonized. 
The Irish, he considered, could be permanently held in 
obedience only by a strong force of English settlers, who 
would introduce order and industry into those wild re- 
gions. For this object the forms of law were converted 
into instruments of arbitrary power. Juries were bullied 
to find verdicts according to Wentworth's mind. Legal 
quibbles were raised which gave him all that he wanted. 
Wentworth's system of government seemed liable to no 
rule, and broke in upon the ancient traditions and the 
fixed if disorderly habits of the population with all the 
caprice and violence of the powers of nature. 

Wentworth's rule of Ireland was, in fact, the fullest 
development of that system of government which was 
known to him and Laud by the expressive 
nickname of " thorough." The word meant, north's mode 
in the first place, a thorough contempt of all ^^^°''^''"' 
private interests and personal ends. Office 
was to be held, not to enrich the holder but to benefit 
the State. The determination to set the State above the 
individual led to an equally strong determination to set 
1 



io6 Resistance in Scotland and England. 1637. 

the State above classes and parties ; above prejudices 
however deeply rooted, above interests however widely 
spread. Even with such a man as Wentworth to direct 
the action of the State, such a policy could hardly have 
attained the success for which he hoped. It grasped too 
much at once, and whilst improving the outward condi- 
tion of men, it lowered their moral dignity by treating 
their modes of thinking, their sentiments and aspirations, 
as unworthy of a moment's consideration. It dea.lt with 
human beings as a flock of sheep is dealt with by the 
shepherd ; and human beings, faulty and corrupt though 
they may be, are capable of better things than a flock of 
sheep. Nor was it possible to separate the effects of 
Wentworth's system in Ireland from the effects of his 
system in England. In Ireland, in intention at least, it 
aimed at raising the condition of the population to a 
higher stage of civihzation. In England it would have 
debased a high-spirited and united nation to a lower 
stage of civilization. In Ireland the genius of Wentworth 
had to fall back in the last resort upon the support of 
Charles. In England the weakness of Charles was 
undermining the edifice of government, and for good or 
for evil Wentworth's authority in Ireland must stand or 
fall with the authority of his master in England. 



CHAPTER VI. 

RESISTANCE IN SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. 

Section I. — The Downfall of Episcopacy in Scotland. 
Episcopacy had been retained in England because 
the bishops had taken part in the English 
fnsSiS^''^' Reformation. Episcopacy had ceased in 



1 6 3 7 • Doivnfall of Episcopacy in Scotland. 107 

Scotland because the bishops had not taken part 
in the Scottish Reformation. The bishops who were 
to be found there in the beginning of the 17th century 
had been placed in office by James because he wanted 
instruments to keep the clergy in order, and he was able 
to do this because the nobles, far more powerful in Scot- 
land than in England, were jealous of the clergy. The 
clergy and the mass of religious people were Puritan 
with a strength of Puritanism unknown in England, and 
it had only been by the threats and by the aid of the 
nobles that James had driven the clergy to accept some 
few English church forms, such as kneeling at the sacra- 
ment, and keeping of Christmas and Easter. But even 
these were resisted by large numbers of the people, and 
any man of sense would have seen that the Scotch 
could not be compelled to accept further ceremonies 
without serious risk. 

Neither Laud nor Charles could be satisfied till a 
new Prayer Book was drawn up for Scotland, 

•' ^ A. D. 1637. 

which, so far as it differed at all from the ? 2. The new 
English service, differed in a sense ad- 
verse to Puritanism. On July 23 an attempt was made 
to read the new service for the first time at Edinburgh. 
Scarcely were the first words uttered, when a wild 
uproar arose amongst the women who were present. 
Stools, it is said, were thrown at the officiating minister's 
head. A man ventured to say " Amen " at the conclu- 
sion of a pra^^er. "Dost thou say mass in my lug?" 
(in my ear); cried one of the viragos, and dashed her 
Bible in his face. The voice of the rioters was the voice 
of Scotland. The whole nation, with slight exceptions, 
bristled into resistance. Doubtless other causes were 
mingled with rehgious zeal. The nobles, who had once 
been jealous of the clergy, were now jealous of the 



io8 Resistance in Scotland a7id England, 1637. 

bishops, and suspected that Charles meant to take away 
from them the lands which had once been the property 
of the Church. The national feehng was offended by 
the introduction of a service-book from England. But 
whatever were the motives at work, Scotland presented 
an almost united front in opposition to the detested in- 
novations. 

As Charles' unwillingness to withdraw from his ill- 
advised position became known, the resistance grew 
more stubborn. In November four Com- 

A. D. 16^8. 

1 3. The mittees, known as the Tables, practically 

assumed the government of Scotland. In 
February almost all Scottish men were hurrying to sign 
the national Covenant, engaging to defend the reformed 
religion, and promising "to labor by all means lawful to 
recover the purity and liberty of the gospel, as it was 
established and professed before the innovations." 

Charles felt the insult keenly. But he was obliged 

to enter into negotiations. The Marquis of Hamilton, a 

courtly, inefficient peer, was sent to wheedle 

? 4 Hamilton ^^ Scots, if it might be, out of the Covenant. 

in Scotland. ° 

Charles had recourse to those subterfuges 
in which he delighted in times of difficulty. In order " to 
win time," Hamilton was to give ear to anything the 
Scots might choose to say. What else could he do ? The 
English, it is known at court, were " readier to join the 
Scots than to draw their swords in the king's service." 
Hamilton was instructed to promise to the Scotch a 
General Assembly of the Church, to be followed by a 
Parhament; and on September 2 a proclamation was 
issued revoking the service-book and other obnoxious 
measures, and promising to limit the powers of the 
bishops. At the same time the Scotch were asked to 
abandon their Covenant for another of the king's inditing. 



Downfall of Episcopacy in Scotland. 109 



On November 21 the promised Assembly met at Glas- 
gow. A General Assembly was a far better 

gow Assembly. 



representation of the Scottish nation of ?5-TheCias- 



that day than the Parliament. The clerical 

element was predominant in the Assembly as in the 

nation. But it did not stand alone. Together with 144 

clergymen sat 96 lay elected members, chosen by the 

towns and country districts, and comprising the bulk of 

the nobility. Hamilton was there to represent the 

king. 

It was not long before Hamilton found himself at issue 
with the Assembly. The bishops refused to acknow- 
ledge the authority of an Assembly which 
had been composed without reference to tioa of 
them. The Assembly insisted on its right piscopacy. 
to pass judgment on the bishops. Hamilton resisted to 
the uttermost. The king, he said, was supreme over all 
causes civil and ecclesiastic ; to him the bishops had ap- 
pealed, and he alone was competent to be their judge. 
Finding his words of no avail, he left the Assembly and 
issued a proclamation dissolving it. The Assembly took 
no account of the proclamation, deposed the bishops, 
annulled all the forms and ordinances of the Episcopal 
Church, and re-established the Presbyterian system in 
its entirety. 

Politically, the step thus taken was of the very highest 
importance. In opposition to the theory of kingship as 
the supreme authority in the State, the Scotch , „ . , 

^ ■' ^7 Practical 

had virtually unfurled the banner of repub- republican- 
licanism. They still called themselves sub- 
jects of King Charles. But they decided the one im- 
portant question of the day without consulting him, 
and without allowing him the right of rejecting or modi- 
fying their resolutions. They stretched out their hand 



no Resistance i7t Scotland and England. 1637. 

and grasped the supremacy which Charles had used so 
unwisely. 

If all this meant Republicanism, it did not mean 

liberty. Presbyterianism was with the Glas- 

g8. Theiiiov-- -' , , ^ , , , , 1 

ment n )t a gow Assembly a form of church order estab- 

liberal one. ^.^^^^ ^^ ^^^ Himself, and announced to 

men in the Bible. Christians had no right to be governed 
in ecclesiastical matters otherwise than by the clergy, 
with such association of the laity as the special church 
orders of any given country might direct. But there was 
to be no control by bishops, no control by the king, no 
liberty of speech or writing. 

For all that, the Scottish movement was a necessary 

preparation for liberty. Not till the majority of a nation 

is left undisturbed in its religious or political 

g 9. Yet it was . . , . j r j 

a condition of prmciples Can It venture to accord treedom 
'^^ ^' to a minority. The resolution of Charles 

and Laud, to compel a nation to worship God in a way 
which the mass of that nation believed to be displeasing 
to God, was rightly met by the assertion that to the mass 
which worship, and not to the few who direct, belongs 
the choice of the forms in which worship should be 
clothed. Whilst the conflict lasted it was no more possi- 
ble to be tolerant of disaffection than it is possible for a 
general of an army in the field to be tolerant of disaffec- 
tion. But the mere success of the majority of the nation 
would eventually bring toleration in its train. The strong 
can afford to allow things to be done and words to be 
spoken which the weak will be eager to suppress at all 
hazards. 



1639- T]ie Bishops^ Wars. 



Section II. — The Bishops' Wars and tJie Short 
Parliament. 

The commotion thus begun in Scotland was certain 
to spread to England. If the claim of the Scottish 
Assembly went further than the claims of the English 
Parliament, it was nevertheless of the same 

' A.D. 16 9. 

kind as that which had been advanced by § 1. ) n^iand 
the Commons in 1629. Englishmen had 
not said that they could make laws without the king, 
or that PrcGbytcrianisiu was of divine right. But they 
had said that the king was morally bound to take their 
advice, and that the doctrines which they professed 
were so true that no others ought to be openly preached. 
Against this theory Charles and Laud, not without some 
thought of a divine right of kings and bishops in the 
background, had maintained the counter theory of the 
royal supremacy in church matters. If Scotland was 
allowed to throw off the yoke, it would not be long before 
England followed its example. 

If, therefore, the king was not to abdicate the power 
with which he believed himself to be entrusted for the 
good of both nations, war there must be with 
Scotland. War, too, it must be without the .? ^- /repara- 

' ' tions tor war. 

support of an English Parliament, which 

would be certain to expect answers to awkward questions. 

Voluntary contributions were therefore first asked from 

the nobility, and strong pressure was put by Laud upon 

the clergy to induce them to follow their example. The 

laity in general did not show any eagerness to favor the 

movement. 

The Scotch were thoroughly prepared. The kingdom 
swarmed with old soldiers wdio had served in Germany 
in the Thirty Years' War, and thus, though Scotland had 



112 Resistance in Scotland and England. 1640. ■ 

not been engaged in war for many years, 
g3 The fir;t, gj^^ \i.-3.6. at her disposal a veteran force to 

iiishcps war. '■ 

serve as a nucleus for her untrained levies. 
At the beginning of June some 20,000 men were gathered 
on Dunse Law, a hill not far from Berwick, on the road 
to Edinburgh. Opposite to them was the king, with 
rather more than 22,000 Englishmen. But they were 
Englishmen who had no heart to fight. They knew that 
at the bottom the Scottish cause was the cause of England 
as well. Everything was in disorder in Charles' camp. 
The men had not food enough to eat. The officers 
themselves were grumbling at the tasks assigned to 
them. The recruits scarcely took the trouble to learn 
their duty as soldiers, and one of them sent a shot through 
the canvas of the king's tent. Charles was warned on 
every hand that, with such men at his back, fighting was 
impossible, and he reluctantly agreed to treat for peace. 
On June 24 an agreement was signed, in which the deeds 
of the Glasgow Assembly were passed over in silence, 
but a promise was given that all affairs, civil and eccle- 
siastical, should be settled in concurrence with an As- 
sembly and a Parliament. 

Neither the Assembly nor the Parliament conducted 
itself to Charles' satisfaction, and he began to turn his 

thoughts towards a renewal of the war. 
f'^'Tht°* Wentworth, now raised to the earldom of 

men? '^^'^^'^' Strafford, came over from Ireland and 

stirred the fire. He had been long away 
from England, and was doubtless but little aware of the 
temper of the English people. Pie counselled the sum- 
moning of a Parliament. After eleven years* intermis- 
sion, Parliament — the Short Parliament, as it was after- 
wards called — met at Westminster. Charles had come 
^upon the traces of some communication between the 



1640. TJie Bishops^ Wars. 113 

Scotch insurgents and tlie French government, and he 
fancied that the spirits of Enghshmen would be stirred 
when they heard of a treasonable connection with their 
ancient enemy. But Englishmen had something else 
to think of, and the Commons at once made it plain that 
their own grievances must be redressed before they 
would give anything to the king. As the grievances 
could be redressed only by undoing the whole of Charles' 
ecclesiastical system, he dissolved Parliament on May 5, 
after a session of only three-and-twenty days. To yicM 
except to force would be to renounce every principle of 
his life. 

It was impossible that the dissolution of this Parlia- 
ment should leave men's tempers as they „ _, „. 

. ? 5- The King 

were before. English Puritanism and Scot- aidtUeCom- 

. 1 -r^ , . . . , n.ons. 

tish Presbyterianism were not yet quite the 
same thing. But they were rapidly approaching one 
another. The Puritans had discovered that the king so 
detested their principles that he would rather engage in 
war with scarcely a prospect of success, than yield to 
their demands. They still shrank from acknowledging 
that in so doing he was only acting in accordance with 
the conditions of his nature. With what remnant of 
loyalty still remained, they laid the blame on Laud and 
Strafford ; on Strafford more especially. The fact stood 
out clear as day before their eyes that he had once been 
the leader of the House of Commons, and that he was 
now the great enemy of that parliamentary preponder- 
ance which they now demanded as their right. He was 
to them the great apostate, terrible in his wrath, subtle in 
his machinations. 

Whatever allowance a fuller inquiry may enable us to 
make for Strafford's errors, there can be no doubt 
that he had thrown himself on the wronc: side ir?. 



114 Resistance 171 Scotland and England. 1640. 
1 6. Strafford's the CTeat strusi^-g-le of his day. In the loner 

position. ... 

run, in the course of years, Strafford's ob- 
jections to the predominance of Parhament would have 
to be listened to, and it would be necessary to provide 
remedies against the evils which he foresaw. But the 
immediate danger lay in another direction. The orderly 
Elizabethan government, with its wise statesmen at the 
head, and its loyal Parliaments laying their advice at the 
foot of the throne, had no place in the real life of 1640. 
Things had come to such a pass that men must choose 
between the supremacy of Charles and the supremacy 
of Parliament, however much the members of the 
Houses might veil the issue of persuading themselves 
that they were contending for King and Parliament 
against the obnoxious advisers of the King. Nicer dis- 
tinctions must wait till that quarrel had been fought out. 
A few months were to pass before the great contention 
was brought to an issue. Strafford was now with Charles 

as he marched northwards. But even 
se^c'ond ^ Strafford could not infuse a particle of his 

Eniops' spirit into that disaffected army. The Scotch 

invaded England. At Newburn, on August 
28th, they crossed the Tyne, driving before them an 
English force in headlong panic. Strafford did not 
venture to advise the prolongation of the war with the 
army in such a temper. Negotiations were opened, and 
Northumberland and Durham were left in the hands of 
the Scots as a pledge for the payment of their expenses, 
at the rate of 850/. a day, till a permanent treaty could 
be agreed on. 

In such desperate circumstances another Parliament 

was unavoidable if the Scots were to be con- 
CounciL ^^^^^ tented. The king had already called round 

him, after an obsolete precedent, a Great 



1640. The Alt'ctbig of the Long Parlianiciit. 115 

Council of Peers. But the Peers had advised him to 
summon Parhament, and that advice there was no re- 
sisting. This time he would have to meet the opposition 
of both Houses. 

Section III. — The Meeting of the Long Parliament, and 
the Execution of Strafford. 

On November 3, 1640, that great assembly, destined to 
be known in history as the Long Parliament, met at 
Westminster. Charles was anxious to ob- 
tain an immediate vote of money. But meeting of 
Parliament had work of its own to do first, Pa^rUament 
and every member knew that there were 
chances on the side of the Parliament which might never 
be offered again. If Parliament were dissolved before 
the Scots were paid, there was nothing to prevent the 
Scottish army from marching to London without opposi- 
tion. For once, Charles did not dare to dissolve Parlia- 
ment, and the Commons were naturally in no hurry to 
provide for the satisfaction of the Scots. 

There were many men at court whom the Commons 
disliked. There was one man whom they both feared 
and hated. On the nth, the impeachment „ ^ 

'■ 2 2. Impeach- 

of Strafford upon the charge of high treason ment of 
was moved by Pym, who at once took the 
lead in the House. If his speech was an attack upon the 
man, it was also an arraignment of the system of which 
that man was the highest representative. It was an ap- 
peal to the rule of law from the rule of will. At once the 
charge was carried up to the Lords. Strafford was just 
entering the House as the message arrived. Shouts 
commanded him to forbear from pressing forward to his 
place. He left the House only as a prisoner. Others oi 
the leading officials fled abroad to escape the storm. 



"1 1 6 Resistance in Scotland and England. 1 6 4 1 . 

Laud was committed to the Tower, but at present there 
was no thought of touching the old man's life. 

On March 22, 1641, the trial of Strafford began in 
Westminster Hall. Day by day the king 
r'^Hit^riai ^^^ queen came down, concealed by a trel- 
lised partition, to listen to the proceedings. 
Article after article was enforcedby the arguments of the 
managers for the Commons. All Strafford's life was 
unrolled before his eyes as a settled attempt to overthrow 
the constitution in England. But after the long list of 
his offences had been produced, the doubt was moved 
whether all these things together would constitute high 
treason. That crime was strictly defined by a statute of 
Edward III., and it was difficult to draw any one act of 
Strafford's within the wording of that statute. Young 
Sir Henry Vane, the son of the Secretary of State, rum- 
maging amongst his father's papers, found a note of 
a speech delivered by Strafford in council at the time of 
the dissolution of the Short Parliament, in which he had 
spoken of the king as " absolved and loose from all rule 
of government." "Your Majesty," he had gone onto 
say, " having tried all ways and been refused, shall be 
acquitted before God and man ; and you have an army 
in Ireland that you may employ to reduce this kingdom 
to obedience, for I am confident the Scots cannot hold 
out three months." In order to urge that this constituted 
treason, it was necessary in the first place to show that 
the kingdom intended was England and not Scotland, 
an interpretation which, to say the least of it, was ex- 
tremely doubtful, and then to show that an attack upon 
the institutions of the country was equivalent to the crime 
of high treason. 

The Commons became aware that the Lords were 
wavering on the legality of the sentence which they were 



1641. Execution of Strafford. 1 1 7 

asked to give. They dropped the impeach- 
ment and substituted a bill of attainder. An petchme™" 
impeachment called upon the Lords to act turned into 

'^ '- an attainder. 

as Judges, and to decide, in some sort after 
legal rules. A bill of attainder, passing both Houses and 
accepted by the king, was an act of power for which no 
reasons need be given. Pym, with his intense reverence 
for law, struggled against the conclusion. Treason, he 
held, was not an offence against the king's private per- 
son, but against the king as the head and representative 
of England, and an attack upon England must be held 
to be the worst attack upon the king. Such arguments 
could not break down the scruples of the Peers. The 
House of Commons voted to proceed by bill. The Lords, 
who were unwilling to vote as judges that high treason 
had been committed, had no objection to treat Strafford 
as a public enemy. On May 8 the bill of attainder had 
passed both Houses. 

If Strafford was a public enemy, he was at least the 
friend of the king, and Charles had given him a special 
promise when he came to London, that not 
a hair of his head should be touched. To tionofLtraf- 
save him was well-nigh impossible. But it ^^ ' 
was not for Charles to set his hand to the sentence. 
Charles hesitated, and was lost. The outer world of po- 
pular resolve, the very existence of which in his self-con- 
tained imagination he had absolutely ignored, confronted 
him with firm determination. Charles blenched before 
the unexpected foe and consigned his truest supporter to 
the scaffold. 

Strafford was to die asapublicenemy. The 
old Tudor constitution was based upon the ge^He^dies 
co-operation of king and Parhament. The as a public 

, . , , enemy. 

kmg had isolated himself not merely from 



1 1 8 Resista7ice in Scotland and England. 1 641 . 

the House of Commons, but from the nation which 
was behind it, and to his attempt to rule without reference 
to the nation Strafford had devoted all the strength of 
his intellect. He could not see that the foundations of 
order and of wise government could be laid far more 
firmly in the popular will than in the will of an individual. 
With his eyes open to the blunders and faults of repre- 
sentative assemblies, he deliberately excluded from his 
calculations the blunders and errors of the king. It was 
too late to learn the lesson when he was abandoned by 
Charles. With the words " Put not your trust in princes " 
on his lips, he prepared for the scaffold. On May 12 
the axe fell, and the great royalist statesman had ceased 
for ever to influence the course of this world's affairs. 



Section IV. — Demands of the Commons. 

It was well that Pym's voice should be raised for law. 
But it was riot with law that the Commons were imme- 
diately concerned. Virtually, the civil war 
struggle for began with Strafford's execution. It was a 
supremacy, struggle to ascertain whether the Crown or 
the House of Commons was the strongest power in the 
country. When that question should be answered, it 
would be possible to build anew on the old foundations. 
It is useless to watch the doings of this Parliament, and 
to ask how far its acts were in compliance with some 
constitutional standard of the 15th or the 19th century. It 
is useless to ask whether they might not have regulated 
the king's authority instead of shattering it. It was its 
business to shatter it because, with Charles upon the 
throne, it was impossible to regulate it. 

Thick and fast the blows succeeded one another. 
With the Scottish army in the background, the Com- 



1 641. Demands of the Commons. 119 

mons had obtained the royal assent in . y^. . 

. . . g 2. Diminu- 

February to a bill authorizing the election tiouofthe 
of a Parliament at least once in three years, thTcrown. 
even if the king did not summon one. In 
May the king agreed that the existing Parliament should 
not be dissolved without its own consent, a stipulation 
which, as it rendered the House of Commons independent 
of all power external to itself, gave into his hands a 
dictatorship which would have been ruinous in an 
ordinary state of things, but which was absolutely neces- 
sary for the special work of establishing its own supre- 
macy. One after another the instruments by which the 
king had been enabled to defy the nation were snatched 
from his hands. Ship-money was declared to be illegal, 
and tonnage and poundage were no more to be levied 
without parliamentary consent. An end was put to the 
Star Chamber and the High Commission. The king 
therefore could no longer pay his way without recourse 
to Parliament, nor could he send any of his subjects 
to prison without recourse to the ordinary legal authori- 
ties, a rule which, in most cases, implied recourse to a 
jury as well. 

In July the work was done, and in August a treaty 
was signed with the Scots. The money due 
to the Scottish army was paid, and the men ? 3- The Scots 

■' ^ ' return home. 

who had delivered England recrossed the 
border and dispersed to their northern homes. 

Why were not the Commons satisfied ? In the first 
place, because they could not trust the king. It was not 
in the nature of things that any man not 
sufficiently clear-sighted to have avoided ? 4. -Distrust 

J ° 01 the king. 

falling into such difficulties should be suffi- 
ciently clear-sighted to act with prudence in the position 
into which he had now been driven. It was impossible 



I20 Resistance in Scotland and England. 1641, 

to suppose that Charles would consent to see himself 
stripped forever of that authority which he had been 
taught to consider his own by right. He might not 
directly seek to annul the legislation to which he had 
assented. But there were hundreds of indirect ways in 
which he might gather up the fragments of authority 
which were left, and attempt once more to impress his 
will upon England. 

Such considerations would probably have been of 
little avail against the king if there had been no question 
practically in dispute between him and the Commons. 
But if the political arrangements had been settled, the 
ecclesiastical arrangements were still unsettled. The 
king still believed that what Laud had done 
?^5^^^he Church i^a.d been rightly done. The Commons be- 
lieved that it had been wrongly done. Nor 
was this merely a theoretical difference. If Laud was in 
prison, the other bishops were not, and unless something 
were done to take power out of the bishops' hands, it 
would be difficult to prevent them from seizing an early 
opportunity of exercising their influence in a way which 
seemed very evil to the House of Commons. Laws 
might be made to abolish the late innovations, to compel 
the removal of the communion table from its new posi- 
tion, to abrogate offensive rites and ceremonies ; but 
unless some way were found of limiting the power of the 
bishops whose duty it was to see that the new laws were 
carried into effect, it was to be feared that they would, to 
a great extent, remain a dead letter. The Church would 
be sure, under the guidance of the Commons, to assume 
a form more or less Puritan, and such a Church could 
not safely be entrusted to Laudian bishops. 

The first action taken was but a little part of that 
which was to follow. In March a bill was brought in to 



1641. Demands of the Commons. 121 

restrain bishops from meddling with secular 

affairs. If it passed, they could no longer f^gbS?^'"^* 

sit in the privy council, or in the House of 

Lords. In the House of Lords it met with opposition, 

and in June it was thrown out by a decided majority. 

The Commons warmed to the encounter. They replied 

by pushing on a root and branch bill, as it was then 

called, for the entire abolition of bishops in the Church. 

The opposition to these bills did not proceed altogether 
from the friends of Laud's system. There 
was a strong middle party forming in both |/odJrates. 
Houses in the nation, desirous of a compro- 
mise, in which Episcopacy should be in some way modi- 
fied by arranging that the bishops should share their 
authority with the ministers of their dioceses 

Foremost among the new party of Moderates Avas the 
gentle and amiable Lucius Carey, Lord Falkland. In 
early hfe Falkland had tried and abandoned 
a soldier's life, and had retired " to a country fand^^^'^' 
life and to his books." His reputation for 
learning rapidly grew. " He was of so stupendous learn- 
ing in all kinds, and in all languages, that a man would 
have thought he had been entirely conversant with books, 
and had never spent an hour but in reading and writing ; 
yet his humanity, courtesy, and affability were such that 
he would have been thought to have been bred in the 
best courts, but that his good nature, charity, and delight 
in doing good and communicating all he knew, exceeded 
that breeding." But it is neither for his learning nor for 
his benevolence that Falkland is best remembered. His 
house at Great Tew, a few miles from Oxford, was the 
gathering place for a company of wise or witty men, who 
would have been content to follow Laud in his opposition 
to the dogmatism of the Puritans, but who abhorred 
K 



122 Resistance in Scotland and England. 1641. 

Laud's despotic enforcement of uniformity. Thither 
came ChilUngworth, the herald of a wide and tolerant 
Christianity. Thither came others, such as Sheldon and 
Morley, who hved to be the pillars of the Church of the 
Restoration, after their generosity had been chilled by 
the icy wind of Puritan supremacy. There, too, came 
men who were but the verse-writers and the jest-makers 
of the day. Falkland had a kindly word and a helping 
hand for them all. When they visited Great Tew they 
" found their lodgings there as ready as in the colleges ; 
nor did the lord of the house know of their coming or 
going, nor who were in his house, till he came to dinner 
or supper where all still met ; otherwise, there was no 
trouble, ceremony, or restraint, to forbid men to come 
to the house, or to make them weary of staying there ; 
so that many came thither to study in a better air, finding 
all the books they could desire in his library, and all the 
persons together whose society they could wish, and not 
find any other society." 

Edward Hyde, the future Lord Chancellor Clarendon, 
and the author of that History of the Great Rebellion 

which was to teach four generations of Eng- 
|9. Edward lishmen to look with admiration upon the 

royalist cause, had a lawyer's dishke of the 
assumption of temporal authority by the bishops, but a 
mind far less liberal than that of Falkland, 

To those who look back from these times of peace 
upon those days of bitter strife, Falkland's policy of the 

compromise seems at first sight very wise. 

i 10. Weak- . - . , , 1 1 T 1 1 

nessofthe But it may fairly be doubted whether com- 
Moderates. promise was then possible. As things then 
stood, bishops were the nominees of the crown. They 
had for the most part been appointed to maintain a 
state of things which it was thought desirable to sweep 



1 641. Demands of the Commons. 123 

away. To E.urround such men with counsellors whose 
ideas were diametrically opposed to their own would be 
to constitute anarchy and call it government. Unless 
the whole bench of bishops was to be deposed and a new 
one nominated in accordance with the principles of the 
Commons, the proposed compromise could not possibly be 
put in working order. The weakness of the Moderate 
party was that it had no practical plan to propose, and 
that even if such a plan could have been found, men's 
minds were too excited by past injustice to listen to any- 
thing which did not give the amplest assurance for the 
supremacy of Puritanism. For a little time the battle 
was postponed. The king announced his resolution to 
visit Scotland. The Houses took upon themselves to 
issue orders for the abolition of the late innovations in 
England. They then adjourned for six weeks, to 
October 20. 

It was in the king's power to convert the weakness of 
the Moderate party into strength If he could once im- 
press men with the notion that he had 
frankly accepted the new order of things ting's pa^rt 
all might yet go well It was because he weakness. 
did not, could not, frankly accept it that dis- 
trust arose The belief that Charles regarded the 
Moderate party simply as a lever to bring about the 
restoration of much of that which he had yielded 
strengthened the hands of Pym in his demand for further 
guarantees. It was in vain that Charles brought into 
his council men who sympathized with the Commons. 
It was in vain that he entrusted offices of State to Falk- 
land and Hyde. Pym's eye was upon him, and Pym 
believed that he would be governed by his own wishes, 
and not by Falkland and Hyde. 



124 Resistance in Scotland and England. 1 64 1 . 



Section V. — The Grand Remonstrance and the Rupture. 
with the King, 

The news from Scotland was every day growing more 
alarming. The dominant spirit in Scotland now was 

Argyle, a bad warrior but an able states- 
gi.^The man. With patient skill he had woven 

Scofilnd. firmly all the elements of dissatisfaction into 

a compact national resistance. It was in 
vain that the fiery young Earl of Montrose had writhed 
under his supremacy, had entered into correspondence 
with the king, and had offered to denounce Argyle as a 
traitor. Before the king reached Scotland Montrose was 
in prison as a plotter. Before he had been there long, 
all Edinburgh was ringing with a further plot of Mon- 

trose's for kidnapping, if not murdering, 

Argyle and his leading followers, in which 
the king was strongly suspected of being involved. 
Nothing was proved, and the only result was that the 
king threw himself entirely into the hands of Argyle, 
filling every place in the government with his supporters. 
In return, they gave him their word of honor that Scot- 
land would never interfere in the religious quarrels of 
the English. 

If some inkling of these Scottish arrangements had 

filtered through the ears of Pym, the effect was as nothing 

^, compared with the effect of the tidings from 

g 2. 1 he . 

Ir.shinsur- another quarter which spread over London 
on November i. The north of Ireland was 
aflame with insurrection. The strong hand of Strafford 
had been removed, and the Celtic population had turned 
savagely on the English and Scottish colony. Murder, 
and atrocities worse than murder — so at least rumor. 



1 641. The Grand Remofistrance. 125 

doubtless not without large exaggeration, affirmed — had 
ruled unchecked. All England believed that tender 
women had been stripped naked and turned out into the 
wintry waste, to die of cold and starvation ; that others 
had been driven into the river and drowned ; that inno- 
cent children had been slaughtered as savagely as full- 
grown men ; and that those who escaped the sword or 
the club had wandered helplessly about till death brought 
forgetfulness of their sufferings. The lowest estimate of 
the destruction which was able to gain credit in England 
raised to 30,000 the number of the victims. 

One bitter cry for vengeance went up from England, 
as pitiless as that which in our own time arose when the 
news of the Indian Mutiny reached our 
shores. But with anger mingled distrust of f 3- ^'^^^'^ °^ 

° ° the news. 

the king. He had been doing strange 
things in Scotland. Might he not have been doing 
strange things in Ireland as well ? How was it possible 
to trust him with an army to put down the Irish rebel- 
lion ? It was but too likely that he would use it to put 
down the English Parliament first. To some extent no 
doubt there may have been exaggeration in these sus- 
picions. But they were right in the main. Charles, with 
an army at his command, would undoubtedly not have 
tolerated Pym. It is hardly likely that he would have 
retained even Hyde and Falkland in his council. The 
time had come when it was absolutely necessary for 
England to have a government by which it could be 
guided. It was no longer within the limits of possibility 
that Charles should offer it such a government. He 
stood alone, separate from the feelings and wishes of his 
people, as completely without sympathy with the 
Moderate party as he was without sympathy with the 
most violent of his opponents. It was an absolute neces- 



120 Resistance in Scotland and England. 1641. 

sity to get rid of Charles, and to substitute some man or 
body of men in his room. 

It was not in the nature of things, however, that even 
those who were most resolved to go forward should at 
once open their eyes to the distinct point 
Grknd Re- towards which they were surely treading. It 

monstrance. ^^^ enough for the present for them to 
issue a manifesto showing what Charles' errors had been, 
in order that all men might see why it was so difficult to 
trust him now. The Grand Remonstrance was the re- 
sult. It was a long indictment of Charles' conduct 
from the beginning of his reign, exaggerated doubtless, 
and untrue in many particulars, but none the less repre- 
senting the history of the past years as it mirrored itself 
in the minds of earnest Puritans. The inference, 
which no one perhaps had yet consciously drawn, was 
obviously that a king who had ruled so badly in the 
past was incapable of ruling at all in the future. Yet 
there were many in the House who had persuaded them- 
selves that Charles had seen the error of his ways, and 
would now rule better than he had hitherto done. 

The vote on the Grand Remonstrance was strictly a 
vote of want of confidence in the king. The debate 
was long and stormy. From early morning 
g5°\l'tormy all through the afternoon the torrent of 
debate. argument and warning ran on. Night fell, 

and candles were brought. It seemed as if at that crisis 
of England's history no man dared to leave unspoken the 
word which was burning on his tongue. At last, after 
midnight, the division came. A small majority of eleven 
declared against the king. At once a member rose to 
move that the Remonstrance should be printed ; in other 
words, that it should be spread abroad to rouse the 
nation to share thedistrust of the majority of the House 



1 641. The Grand Remonstra7ice, 127 

of Commons. The Moderates declared their resolution 
to protest against such an act. A protest was unprece- 
dented in the House of Commons. A wild uproar en- 
sued. Members snatched their swords from their belts, 
and handled them with significant gestures. It needed 
all Hampden's authority to obtain the postponement of 
the discussion. 

Five days later the king returned to London. The 
large minority in the Commons was backed by an en- 
thusiastic body of supporters in the City. ^^^ ^^ 
Charles was feasted at Guildhall, and the 1 6. The king's 

• 1 J. return. 

. populace shouted welcome m the streets. 
On the sole condition that he could show himself worthy 
of confidence, the vote of want of confidence would soon 
be reversed. 

It was the hardest condition of all. Charles restrained 
himself so far as to hsten to the Remonstrance. But he 
gave no promise that he would act otherwise 
in the future than he had acted in the past, ^ 7. Receives 
and his words from time to time gave reason 'f^^^^^'''^' 
to think that he had little idea of subsiding 
into a subordinate position. On December 14 the Com- 
mons ordered the printing of the Remonstrance, and the 
order was followed by an answer from the king speaking 
disdainfully of those ecclesiastical reforms which the 
Puritan majority had most at heart. 

The necessity of conciliating popular opinion which 
he believed to be mistaken or corrupt had never been 
understood by Charles. He was not likely 

■' -^ A. D. 1642. 

to learn the lesson now. He had discovered Januarys. 
a technical offence in the leaders of the Op- ncnt of the 
position. Lord Kimbolton in the Lords; '^"=^^=^-'- 
Pym, Hampden, Haselrig, Holies, and Strode in the 
Commons, had entered into communication with the 



128 Resistance in Scotland and England. 1641. 

Scots during the late troubles. Legally they were guilty 
of treason in so doing, and on January 3 Charles sent 
liis Attorney-General to impeach them before the House 
of Lords. With its leaders safely lodged in the Tower, 
resistance on the part of so small a majority would be 
difficult, if not impossible. 

It has always been held that Charles was technically 

in the wrong in his method of procedure. If it was so, 

his offence was swallowed up in the greater 

gg^^Ch^rles offeucc which followed. As the Commons 

attempts to returned an evasive answer to his demand 

seize tnem. 

of the immediate arrest of the members, he 
resolved to seize them himself on the morrow. When 
the morrow came the queen had some difficulty in en- 
couraging her husband to the task which he had under- 
taken. " Go along, you coward," she said, " and pull 
those rascals out by the ears." Followed by a troop of 
some five hundred armed men, the king betook himself 
to the House of Commons. Leaving his followers out- 
side, he stepped quickly up to the Speaker's chair. 
Standing in front of it, he told the House that he had 
come to fetch the traitors. In cases of treason privilege 
of Parliament was no defence against imprisonment. 
Looking hurriedly round, he was unable to see any of 
the five. Calling upon Lenthall, the Speaker, he asked 
whether they were there. Lenthall knelt before him 
with all outward show of reverence. " May it please 
your Majesty," he said, " I have neither eyes to see nor 
tongue to speak in this place, but as the House is pleased 
to direct me." " Well, well ! " answered Charles, " 'tis no 
matter ; I think my eyes are as good as another's. " 
Then again, after further search had convinced him 
that he had come in vain, " Since I see all my birds are 
flown. I do expect from you that you will send them unto 



1642. Rupture with the King. 129 

me as soon as they return hither, otherwise I must take 
my own course to find them." As he moved out of the 
House shouts of " Privilege 1 privilege !" followed him 
from every side. 

Charles doubtless imagined himself to be acting with- 
in his rights. The men as he believed, had not only 
been technically guilty of treason, but had 
actually attempted to subvert the constitu- |f j-^.J^TiT*'"'' 
tion by placing the Commons above the 
Crown. It is useless to dwell upon the legal question 
thus raised. It is enough to say that Charles' long 
government without any reference to Parliament had 
made it necessary that Parliament should govern for a 
time without any reference to him. It was now evident 
that Pym had judged Charles more truly than Falkland. 
He would only yield to the new order of things as long 
as he was obliged to do so. 

The attempt of the king to coerce the House of Com- 
mons by an armed force struck deeply into the popular 

imagination. The accused members had , ^, ^ 

*^ , . § II. The Gom- 

been warned in time, and had taken refuge mons in the 

in the City. The whole House followed, ^ ^' 

and sat daily as a Committee at Guildhall. The City, a 

few weeks before so enthusiastic in Charles' favor, 

gathered now stoutly round the Commons. Every man 

capable of bearing arms turned out in their defence. On 

January 10 the king gave way. Pie left Whitehall, never 

to see it again till the fatal day when he was to enter it 

as a prisoner. The Commons returned in triumph to 

Westminster. 

The struggle for supremacy was now to be put in a 

simple and intelligible form. If there was no standing 

army in Enq-land, there was a militia com- 

\ n •• ' . i 1 /- 1 §12. Thepower 

posed of citizen soldiers trained to defend of themiiida. 



130 The Downfall of Royalty. 1642. 

their homes. Hitherto the officers had been named 
by the king. The nomination was now claimed by 
Parhament. For months argument was carried on 
on both sides with vigor and ingenuity. But the real 
question was not what was constitutional, but who was to 
rule England. Neither side could give way without a 
complete abandonment of all that it believed to be 
right. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE DOWNFALL OF ROYALTY. 

Section I. — The Beginning of the Civil War. 

The immediate strength and ultimate weakness of the 
majority of the Commons lay in its conservatism. The 
king and the bishops were rejected because 
vatism or the they wcre promoters of change, because they 
Commons. -j^^^ attempted to impose by force a form of 
religion which was distasteful to large classes of the 
community. As long as the danger of a return of the 
Laudiiin innovations was unremoved, so long there 
would be no place for those reforms which men like 
Falkland had at heart. " It is far from our purpose or 
design," the majority had declared in the Grand Re- 
monstrance, "to let loose the golden reins of discipline 
and government in the Church, to leave private persons 
or particular congregations to take up what form of di- 
vine service they please ; for we hold it requisite that 
there should be throughout the whole realm a conformi- 
ty to that order which the laws enjoin according to the 



1642. The Beginning of the Civil War. 131 

Word of God ; and we desire to unburthen the con- 
sciences of men of needless and superstitious ceremonies, 
suppress innovations, and take away the monuments of 
idolatry." For this purpose a general synod was to be 
called of " the most grave, pious, learned, and judicious 
divines of this island, assisted by some from foreign 
parts, professing the same religion with us." There was 
no word of liberty here, no sign that the framers of the 
Remonstrance had advanced a step since 1629. What 
change there was to be was simply in order to avert 
change. Openness of mind to new ideas, desire to re- 
concile conflicting elements, were with Falkland and 
not with Pym. For the present such rare qualifications 
were thrown away by Falkland's association with 
Charles. 

It was not, in fact, upon the more thoughtful elements 
of his party that, when once it came to war, Charles 
would have to rely. The dashing cross- Elements 

country rider, followed by his grooms and of Charles' 
huntsmen, would count for more in a cavalry ^^^^' 
charge than all the eloquence of Falkland or all the 
legal arguments of Hyde. Nor was the superiority con- 
fined to the field alone. The unreasoning loyalty of the 
man who said, " If the king's crown hung in a bush I 
would fight for it," would blossom out into wiser counsel 
for the immediate present than would proceed from a 
statesman who had reason to distrust the projects of the 
king, though he had resolved, from very mingled motives, 
to support him. Sir Edmund Verney's may have been 
an extreme case. But he surely did not stand entirely 
alone. "You," he said to Hyde, "have satisfaction in 
your conscience that you are in the right, that the king 
ought not to grant what is required of him ; and so you 
do your duty and business together. But, for my part. 



132 The Downfall of Royalty. 1642. 

I do not like the quarrel, and do heartily wish that the 
king would yield, and consent to what they desire, so 
that my conscience is only concerned in honor and 
gratitude to follow my master. I have eaten his bread 
and served him near thirty years, and will not do so 
base a thing as to forsake him, and choose rather to 
lose my life — which I am sure I shall do — to pre- 
serve and defend those things which are against my 
conscience to preserve and defend ; for I will deal freely 
with you — I have no reverence for bishops, for whom 
this quarrel subsists." 

The conservatism which loves to preserve ancient 

institutions was arrayed against the conservatism which 

loves to preserve spiritual and mental beliefs. 

August 22. ^ . -IT-, 11 

1 3. The war On i^ ugust 22 the kmg s Standard was set 
^^^"^* up at Nottingham to summon all loyal sub- 

jects to his aid against a rebellious Parliament, A de- 
cided majority of the Lords, and a large minority of the 
Commons answered to his call. The civil war had 
begun. 

No exact line of demarcation can be drawn between 

the portions of England which supported the two causes. 

But with an uncertain region between, the 

? 4- Choosing north-west of England — in the days when 

sides. ° •' , 

coal and iron combined formed no portion 
of the national wealth, the rudest and least thickly popu- 
lated part of the country — took the king's side, whilst 
the south-east, with its fertile land, its commercial and 
manufacturing activity, and its superabundant wealth, 
was on the side of the Parliament 

Parliament appointed the Earl of Essex as its com- 
mander-in-chief. A steady, honorable, sober-minded 
man, without a spark of genius, he would hardly be 
likely to know what to do with a victory, even if he 



1642. The Beginning of the Civil War. 133 

got one. On September 22 the first skirmish Qctober2 
was fought at Powick Bridge. The king's § s. Edgc- 

, , 7 T , J hill battle. 

troops were successful, and he pushed on 

for the south, hoping to keep Christmas at Whitehall, 

At Edgehill the way was barred against him by Essex. 
On October 23 the first battle was fought, with no de- 
cisive results. Prince Rupert, the dashing horseman, 
the son of Elizabeth and the Elector Palatine, drove 
all resistance before him with his cavalry. But the 
royalist infantry could not stand against the foot of the 
Parliament, and Rupert returned from headlong pursuit, 
too late to secure a victory. The fruits of victory were 
on the side of the king. The cautious Essex retreated 
slowly, Charles following closely at his heels. On the 
morning of November 12 the king was at Brentford. 

London was in imminent danger. But London had 
her heart in the great contest. The trained bands turned 
out to a man, and marched with firm step to 
Turnham Green. Skippon, a veteran from ge. The 

the German wars, took the command of the of London. 
City forces. " Come, my brave boys," he 
said, as he rode amongst them, "let us pray heartily and 
fight heartily ; remember the cause is for God and for the 
defence of yourselves, your wives, and children." All 
day long on the 13th the two armies stood facing one 
another. At last the king blenched and ordered a retreat. 
He was never to have such another chance again. 

No genius had as yet been displayed on the parlia- 
mentary side. But there was one man, the member 
for Cambridge, who was there to supply the 
need. Oliver Cromwell had lived for many l^^l^^^J"^'^'^ 
years in the strictest school of Puritan 
morality. To him the forms and ceremonies of the 
Church had come to be an abomination since the Laudian 



134 The Downfall of Royalty. 1643. 

system liad been enforced. He saw in them nothing but 
a human device set up as a wall of separation between 
him and heaven. To him God stood revealed in the 
Bible, and in the words of Christian men which were 
founded on the Bible. His special moral characteristic 
was an intense love of justice to the poor and the op- 
pressed. If ever he is heard of in those years in which 
Puritan voices were mostly silent, it is in some effort to 
redress wrongs suffered by the weak. Into the work of 
the Long Parliament, when it met, he threw himself 
heart and soul. He was not a man to be led away by 
subtle distinctions or broad philosophical views of an 
ideal state of things which might possibly be desirable 
in some other century or in some other land than that 
in which his lot was cast. All the iron force of his will 
was directed to the attainment of the one thing imme- 
diately needed, and he knew, what Falkland did not 
know, that that one thing was to deliver England from 
the king and such bishops as Charles had appointed 
formerly, and was likely, if he regained power, to appoint 
again. If Cromwell's aims were all within compass, no 
man had a clearer insight into the conditions under 
which those aims were to be attained ; no man a more 
practical mind in the avoidance of routine and the choice 
of fit instruments for his work. 

Cromwell at once detected the weak point in the par- 
liamentary army. " Your troops," he said to Hampden, 
" are most of them old decayed serving men, 
§8. His advice ^-^^ tapsters, and such kind of fellows, and 

to Hampden. ^ , 

their troops are gentlemen s sons, younger 
sons, and persons of quality ; do you think that the 
spirits of such base and mean fellows will ever be able 
to encounter gentlemen, that have honor and courage 
and resolution in them ? You must get men of a spirit, 



1 643* The Bcgi?iniiig of the Civil War. 13^ 

and take it not ill what I say — I know you will not — of a 
spirit that is likely to go on as far as gentlemen will go ; 
or else you will be beaten still." Hampden shook his 
head, thought the notion good, but impracticable. At 
all events, it was the very essence of Puritanism. Milton 
held that the highest beauty of woman was the outward 
expression of the pure spirit within. Cromwell held that 
the highest bravery of man was the outward expression 
of a spirit set upon high and holy things. 

Undeterred by Hampden's doubts, Cromwell pro- 
ceeded to put his idea into execution. First 
as captain of a troop, then as colonel of a ? 9- Cromwell's 

*■ '■ regiment. 

regiment, he refused to be served except by 

men whose heart was in the cause. But they must be 

men who were also ready to submit to discipline. He 

was soon master of the best soldiers in cither army. 

"My troops," he wrote, "increase. I have a lovely 

company. You would respect them did you know 

them." 

Through 1643 the war dragged on without any decisive 
success on either side. The king took up his head- 
quarters at Oxford. He lost Reading, but 
his troops gained a success at Roundway § ^?- The cam- 
Down, and before July the great city of 
Bristol was in his power. Devonshire, Somersetshire, 
Dorsetshire, Wiltshire, and the north of Hampshire, fell 
almost completely into his hands. Already Hampden 
had been slain by a chance shot in an obscure skirmish. 
The royalists, full of hope, laid siege to Gloucester, that 
they might no longer have the enemy established in their 
rear. At AVestminster there was doubt and hesitation. 
It was only through stress put upon Parliament by a 
City mob that both Houses were prevented from agree- 
ing to terms of peace which would have carried with 



136 The Downfall of Royalty. 1643. 

them an abandonment of their main pretensions. If 
Gloucester had fallen, in all probability the civil war 
would have come to an end. But Essex marched boldly 
to its relief, and Charles broke up the siege. On Essex' 
return he found the royal army drawn up at Newbury to 
bar the way. But the battle, the first battle of Newbury 
as it was called, was again indecisive, and Essex was 
glad to be allowed to continue his march. But if Glou- 
cester was saved, and Essex was undefeated, royalism 
was gaining ground in many other parts of the king- 
dom. 

The battle of Newbury, unimportant in other respects, 
was rendered memorable by the death of Falkland. He 

had long been weary of the war, weary 
i^[ki"'^T* °^ above all of the uncongenial persons with 

whom he was obliged to act, and of the evil 
counsels which prevailed too often with Charles. " His 
natural cheerfulness and vivacity grew clouded, and a 
kind of sadness and dejection of spirit stole upon him 
which he had never been used to." His bodily health 
wasted away. He would go about murmuring " Peace ! 
peace !" Weary of life, and fearing lest the rough 
swordsmen around him would fancy that his love of 
peace implied a want of personal bravery, he exposed 
himself recklessly to every hazard. At Newbury he 
went cheerfully into action, and fell mortally wounded. 
His wise, beautiful soul was no longer to lift up its warn- 
ings on earth against evil to come. The distant future 
was his, the future of compromise and moderation. The 
present was Pym's and Cromwell's. 

Section H. — Presbyterians and Independents. 

Already, on July i, the synod known as the West- 
minster Assembly had commenced its sittings. Against 



i643- F?'esbyterians and Independents. i^*] 

the Laudian idea of uniformity of ceremony 
was to be set the Puritan idea of unity of \-^''y\^^' 
bchef. And though the Assembly would Ass^^mbr^^'^ 
have enough to do with the discussion of 
theological dogmas for some time to come, there was a 
good practical reason why Parhament should understand 
unity of doctrine to mean unity of discipline as well, and 
why that disciphne should be the discipline of Presby- 
terianism. 

Things were not going well with the army, and the 
help of the Scots was much desired. But it was well 
known that the Scots would give no help 
unless England was Presbyterian, and the §2 Invitation 

TT r r^ /• 1 . ^" "^^ Scots. 

Mouse ot Commons felt itself inspired with 
some alacrity to declare England Presbyterian. Not 
that in so doing they were acting against their consciences. 
If England was not to be Episcopal, it could hardly as 
yet be anything but Presbyterian. The complaint 
against the bishops had been that they interfered with 
the parish clergy. It was only natural to try the experi- 
ment of leaving the parish clergy to organize themselves 
in order that they might manage the church in their own 
way. If there was any difficulty at all, it was because, 
true to English traditions, the Commons wished to main- 
tain the supremacy of the lay power over the clerical, 
whilst the Scots held that the clerical power was subject 
to no superior on earth. Further, there was a small 
element, both in the Assembly and in Parliament, which 
was unwilling to bind England for ever to a complete 
agreement with Scotland. 

The Scots, however, were immovable. No Presbyte- 
rianism, no Scottish army. In September the Solemn 
League and Covenant was signed by the 
members of Parliament, binding them tp c!venln^ 

L 



X38 llie Downfall of Royalty. 1643. 

endeavor to bring the religion of England, Scot- 
land, and Ireland to as much conformity as possible, 
and to reform religion " according to the word of God, 
and the example of the best reformed churches." The 
phrase " according to the word of God" is said to have 
been added at the suggestion of Sir Henry Vane, always 
anxious to preserve intellectual liberty, and who wished 
to be able to find in it a loop-hole, if at any time he might 
be inclined to argue that any particular Scotch proposi- 
tion was not in accordance with the word of God. In 
this form, the Covenant was offered on every side as a 
test of fidelity to the parliamentary cause. Wherever 
the power of Parliament could reach, all signs of the 
Laudian ceremonies which yet remained were driven 
from the face of the earth. Charing Cross and the Cross 
at Cheap?ide were torn down. Superstitious images, 
crucifixes, and altars were taken away. Many a painted 
window rich with the glories of mediaeval art, many a 
quaint device and monument of earlier piety, paid the 
penalty for Laud's attempt to force the observance of 
acts of outward reverence upon unwilling minds. Human 
opposition was not to be suffered to maintain itself when 
the tacit protest of glass and stone had been overruled, 
and the Earl of Manchester (the Lord Kimbolton who 
had been accused in company with the five members) 
was sent to Cambridge to drive out all who refused the 
Covenant. There were to be no diversities of opinion at 
that seat of learning. Oxford was as yet beyond the reach 
of Parliament. 

The guidance of the House of Commons had hither- 
to been in the hands of Pym. It would be hard to find 
in the course of English history another 
\i,. Death of man so fitted to this special task. A conser- 

^^' vative by nature, and instinctively opposed 



1 643- Presbyterians and IndeJ^endenis. 139 

to the reception of new and unaccustomed ideas, he was 
the very man to head a revolutionary movement of which 
the object was to preserve as much as possible of the 
existing system in Church and State. To that task he 
brought untiring energy, great capacity for business 
and knowledge of finance, combined with a delicate tact 
which enabled him to guide a large and fluctuating body 
of men. The time had now come when the words of 
King Pym, as men called him admiringly or in derision, 
were no longer to be heard in the House of Commons. 
On December 6 he died, worn out by the labors which 
he had undergone. The league with Scotland was his 
last work. He did not live to see the northern army 
cross the border, but he had done all in his power to 
facilitate its arrival. 

A few weeks after Pym's death Laud fell a sacrifice to 
the league with Scotland. Dragged from his prison, in 
which he had lain forgotten so long, the old a. d. 1644. 
man defended himself with coolness and >'"i':H^'-y i^r 

g 5. iLxecution 

ability. He was as incapable now as ever of of Laud, 
understanding the meaning of the opposition which he 
had roused, and of the anger to which he fell a victim. 
On January 10 he was executed, as Strafford had been 
executed before him. 

It is not likely that Pym would have retained his 
authority if he had lived many years longer. In the 
Assembly itself a small minority of five raised its voice 
against the dominant Presbyterianism. 
Many of the exiles to New England had lians IndTn!" 
come back in hope of better days, and had ^^p^^'^^"^^- 
spread the doctrines of the Separatists, or Independents 
as they now were called. In reality, it was the reluctance 
to submit to the iron rule of clerical orthodoxy which 
was at the bottom of the movement. Each congregation 



140 The Downfall of Hoy ally. 1 6 44. 

was to be independent of every oth-cr congregation, 
capable of forming its own conclusions, with which no 
earthly power was to be permitted to interfere. Such a 
notion was regarded with simple horror by the common- 
place Presbyterian, to whom unity of doctrine had been 
so long the cherished medicine for every ill which beset 
the land. Were men to arise from the very bosom' of 
Puritanism to introduce innovations, distractions, wild 
fanaticisms ? Was every man to have a religion to him- 
self ? Nor was the danger purely theoretical. Baptist 
opinions, shocking to the orthodox mind, were spreading. 
Antinomianism, too, was beginning to be heard of, denying 
that Christians had any need to trouble themselves about 
the fulfillment of the moral law. Others, as a Scotch 
Presbyterian rather incoherently said, taught things 
worse than that ; " the mortality of the soul, the denial of 
angels and devils ; and cast off sacraments ; and many 
blasphemous things." 

If the sects were dangerous, the Presbyterians were in- 
tolerably vexatious. Take such a scene as that which 
took place at Chillingworth's death. Like 

January. 

(> 7. Death of Falkland, he had taken refuge in the king's 
ingwor . ^g^^p Y2j;her than submit to Puritan domina- 
tion. He was captured at Arundel by the parliamentary 
forces, but was too ill to be carried to London. As he 
lay sick at Chichester he was visited by Francis Chey- 
nell, a member of the Westminster Assembly, a "rigid, 
zealous Presbyterian, exactly orthodox, very unwilling 
that any should be suffered to go to heaven but in the 
right way." Cheynell gave the dying man no rest. He 
piied him with questions about his opinions. He re- 
membered, as he himself tells us, the words of the 
Apostle, " Rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound 
in the faith." Chillingworth's charity was a sore stumb- 



1 644. Fresbyterians and Independents. 141 

ling-block to him. "I desired him," he says, "to tell 
me whether he conceived that a man, living or dying a 
Turk, Baptist, or Socinian, could be saved? All the 
answer I could gain from him was, that he did not ab- 
solve them and would not condemn." Cheynell could 
not endure such lukewarmness as this. " Sir," he said, 
" It is confessed that you have been very excessive in 
your charity. You have lavished so much charity upon 
Turks, Socinians, Baptists, that I am afraid you have 
very little to spare for a truly reformed Protestant." In 
January 1644 the soul of the great latitudinarian passed 
away mto that peace under the bright rays of which he 
had lived upon earth. It was only with difficulty that he 
was allowed a burial under the shadow of Chichester 
Cathedral. Cheynell attended the funeral, but only that 
he might throw into the open grave that book, " The 
Religion of Protestants," which is ChiUingworth's chief 
title to the admiration of later generations. " If they 
please," so Cheynell tells the story of his insolence, "to 
undertake the burial of his corpse, I shall undertake to 
bury his errors, which are pubhshed in this so much ad- 
mired yet unworthy book ; and happy would it be for the 
kingdom if this book and all its fellows could be so 
buried. Get thee gone, thou cursed book, which hast 
seduced so many precious souls ! Get thee gone, thou 
corrupt rotten book ! Earth to earth, and dust to dust ! 
Get thee out into this place of rottenness, that thou 
may est rot with the author, and see corruption ! " 

The tolerance of theological errors which did not 
threaten the bond of external 'unity was not entirely a 
new doctrine in England. Proclaimed by Sir Thomas 
More and the men of the new learning in 
the early days before the Reformation ^f^co^JcTence. 
struggle grew warm, it found a place in all 



142 The Downfall of Royalty. 1644. 

the hirjliest writings of the opponents of Calvinistic Puri- 
tanism. A sense of the insufficiency of men to penetrate 
Divine mysteries sheds a warm glow of charity over the 
pages of the wise Hooker, and even Laud was animated 
by a sense of the impossibihty of expressing the highest 
religious truths by verbal definitions. Still more lately 
the wider culture and deeper knowledge of Chillingworth 
and Hales had leant still further to the side of tolerance. 
But the doctrine of liberty of conscience now professed 
approached the great problem of the day from another 
side. Chillingworth had never contemplated the disrup- 
tion of the Church into minute fragments ; he thought it 
possible, as Sir Thomas More thought it possible, that 
men might join together in public worship whilst freely 
pursuing independent trains of thought. The new 
thinkers threw off the outward forms of unity as well as 
the inward agreement and were content if men were 
striving to reach a common end through different 
methods. 

It is no wonder that ordinary Puritanism took alarm. 

And yet this new doctrine, hateful as it seemed, was the 

one thing needful. Parliamentary supre- 

?9- Liberty macv Seemed likely to end in the rule of 

01 speech. ' ■' 

political commonplace. Presbyterian supre- 
macy seemed likely to end in the rule of ecclesiastical 
commonplace. Government by king and council had 
at least been a testimony to the need of special know- 
ledge and ability for the guidance of State affairs. Gov- 
ernment by bishops had at least been a testimony to the 
need of special knowledge and ability for the guidance 
of ecclesiastical affairs. If there was to be no freedom 
of speech for the press or in the pulpit, Church and State 
would soon sink to the dull level of existing popular 
opinion. In proscribing the new thoughts which were 



i644- Marston Moor and Nascby. 143 

to be the life-blood of the coming generation would be 
proscribed as well. The wheat would be rooted out with 
the tares. 

Section III. — Mars to fi Moor and Naseby. 

Parliament would have had little reason for immediate 
anxiety about the progress of ideas so new to the English 
people if they had not found a congenial 
home in that part of the army which was dency^in^he' 
under Cromwell'sinfluence. An independent, ^"^^y- 
in the sectarian sense of the word, Cromwell never was. 
But he was too fully inspired with the higher spiritual life 
of Puritanism to feel otherwise than indignant at any 
attempt to tie men down to fixed opinions. And though 
he was as yet far from occupying any very considerable 
place in the conduct of the war, he was slowly but 
steadily rising in men's opinions. 

In 1643 that part of England where Cromwell was 
had alone been the scene of a decided parliamentary 
success. The Eastern Association, in which 
Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridge, Hert- ^2.°Cromweirs 
fordshire, and Huntingdonshire had bound Progress, 
themselves together for mutual defence, was placed in 
August 1643 under Manchester's command. But Crom- 
well was the leading spirit of the forces thus raised, and 
not only had he thoroughly put down royalism within 
the district, but he had invaded Lincolnshire, beat the 
royalists at Winceby on October 11, and forced the 
Marquis of Newcastle, Charles's commander in the 
North, to raise the siege of Hull. If he had a chance of 
support, he would be ready, when the next campaign 
opened, to attack the royalists in Yorkshire. 

It was not an easy task. Newcastle had almost suc- 
ceeded in establishing his domination over all the 



144 The Downfall of Royalty. 16^.4. 

northern counties. Fairfax, a gallant, 
I 3- Fairfax honorable man, a rood horseman, with a 

in Yorkshire. » c. > "- 

huntsman's eye for country, had struggled 
on in defence of the clothing towns of Yorkshire, But 
he had been forced to give ground, and he wanted more 
help than Manchester and Cromwell could give. 

That help was at hand. The League and Covenant 
had been duly signed. A new authority, composed of 

Englishmen and Scotchmen, had been 
24.^The'*' evoked under the name of the Committee 

the bide? of both kingdoms, to take the guidance of 

the war. The Scotch army, under the 
command of Alexander Leslie, Earl of Leven, crossed 
the border. In June Leven joined Manchester and 
Fairfax, and was laying siege to the Marquis of New- 
castle at York. 

At the head of 18,000 men, the fiery Rupert hurried 
to Newcastle's aid, and the assailants were compelled 

to raise the siege. But Rupert, bold and 
5. Marston dashing in fight, thought little of a bloodless 

success, and hurried Newcastle, half against 
his will, to a decisive battle. At Marston Moor the 
Scots gave way before the charge of the royalist cavalry. 
But Cromwell restored the fight, " It had all the evi- 
dence," he wrote, ** of an absolute victory, obtained by 
the Lord's blessing upon the godly party principally. 
We never charged but we routed the enemy. God made 
them as stubble to our swords." 

The North of England was at last in the hands of 
the parliamentary commanders. But Marston Moor 

had not been a Presbyterian victory. Crom- 

? 6. A victory „, , . , , ,, , 

for the wells Ironsides, as they were well termed. 

Independents. ^^^ decided the fight. Such a result was 
not likely to be favorable to the views of the dominant 



(: 



1 644- Marsion Moor afid Naseby. 145 

party at Westminster. A few months before, a complaint 
had been brought to Cromwell that one of his officers 
was an Anabaptist. "Admit he be," was the sturdy 
reply, " shall that render him incapable to serve the 
public ? Take heed of being too sharp, or too easily 
sharpened by others, against those to whom you can 
object little but that they square not with you in every 
opinion concerning matters of religion." 

It was not only at Marston Moor that Presbyterian 
ascendency was threatened. Essex, the chosen parlia- 
mentary general, had marched westward 

iii T c-r^ ,^ ?7- Caoitula- 

agamst the royahsts of Devon and Corn- tioncf Essex' 
wall. Charles in person followed him with '^°°'^' 
a superior force. Essex was surrounded. With his ■ 
cavaky he cut his way through to safety ; but his foot 
was reduced to capitulate. 

The religious question of toleration or no toleration 
was naturally connected with a political question about 
the mode in which the war was to be con- 
ducted. Conservative Puritanism was long- ti^ewartTbe 
ingto obtain the king's assent to complete ^""^"^-*-^^^ • 
its organization under Presbyterian form. Those who 
were startled by the new idea of liberty of conscience 
were also startled by the new idea of doing without the 
king. They did not want to beat the king too much, 
and Cromwell, who had asserted that if he met the king 
in battle he would shoot him as soon as any other man, 
was regarded by them with horror. What they wanted 
was the old constitution as Ehot had understood it, in 
times when Ehot, if he had been still alive, would have 
been of a very different opinion. A new and untried 
state of things inspired them with terror. 

The quarrel came to a head in Manchester's army. 
As he marched southwards, Cromwell charged him with 



146 The Downfall of Royalty. 1644. 

neglecting his opportunities. He was an 
§9 Manchester affable, crood-natured man, much out of 

and Cromwell. ' o 

place at the head of an army, and there 
was doubtless more of constitutional indolence in his 
mistakes than any deliberate intention to spare the 
enemy. To Cromwell, restless and energetic, prompt in 
action as in counsel, his superior officer's sluggishness 
seemed nothing less than treason to the cause. The 
dispute came to a head after the second battle of New- 
bury, fought on October 27, after which Manchester re- 
frained from pushing home the advantage which he had 
gained. Cromwell brought the delinquencies of the 
general publicly before Parliament. 

Cromwell had, however, no wish to bear hardly upon 
Manchester. He was indignant with the system not 
with the man. He soon substituted for the impeach- 
A. D. 1645. ment of Manchester a Self-denying Ordi- 
gio. TheSei/- nance by which every member of either 

denying 0'"di ■' _ •' 

nance and th^ House was declared incapable of military 
of Presbyteri- Command. As a satisfaction to the Presby- 
anism. terians their system of church government 

was declared universal in England, though the Inde- 
pendents reserved to themselves the right of proposing 
some modification which should provide liberty of con- 
science for Dissenters. 

Cromwell's voice on behalf of liberty found an echo. 

To Cromwell liberty was chiefly valuable because it gave 

full play for the righteousness and moral 

§ II. Milton's vvorth of men. To Milton it was chiefly 

Areopagitica. 

valuable because it gave full play to the 
intellectual vigor of men. He had been writing books 
which had been condemned by the official censors of the 
press. In the Areopagitica he raises his contention far 
above the region of personal dispute. With somewhat 



1 644- Marston Moor and Naseby. 147 

of disdain for those who are weaker than himself, he calls 
upon all men to " prove all things." " He that can ap- 
prehend," he says, ''and consider vice with all her baits 
and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain . . he is the true 
war-faring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and 
cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never 
sallies out and seeks her adversary, but slinks out of the 
race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not 
without dust and heat." Excellence rested in the strug- 
gle which is the law of life, not in the self-satisfied con- 
templation, of already achieved attainments. " Behold, 
now," cried Milton, "this vast city, a city of refuge, the 
mansion-house of liberty, encompassed with God's pro- 
tection ; the shop of war hath not there more anvils and 
hammers working, to fashion out the plates and instru- 
ments of armed justice in defence of beleaguered truth, 
than there be pens and heads there, sitting by their 
ttudious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions 
and ideas wherewith to present us, as with their homage 
and fealty, the approaching reformation ; others as fast 
reading, trying all things, assenting to the force of reason 
and convincement." There need be no fear that liberty 
would give birth to anarchy. " These are the men cried 
out against for schismatics and sectaries, as if, while the 
temple of the Lord was building . . . there should be a 
sort of irrational men who could not consider there must 
be many schisms and many dissections made in the 
quarry and in the timber ere the house of God can be 
built. And when every stone is laid artfully together it 
cannot be united into a continuity, it can but be contigu- 
ous in the world : neither can every piece of the building 
be of one form ; nay, rather the perfection consists in 
this, that out of many moderate varieties and brotherly 
dissimilitudes that are not vastly disproportlonal, arises 



148 The Downfall of Royalty. 1644. 

the goodly and the graceful symmetry that commends 
the whole pile and structure." 

There spoke the spirit of the new epoch. The theory 

of enforced orthodoxy which Laud had attempted to meet 

by his external uniformity received here its 

A. D. T644. ' ^ 

1 12. The fitting answer. Whether or not such prin- 

New Model. . . , • ^i. x. ^ ^i 

ciples were to prosper m the state, they were 
soon to be put to the test in the field. The reorganized 
army, — the New Model, as it was called — was formed 
after the fashion of Cromwell's Ironsides. Men with a 
spirit in them who were ready to submit to discipline re- 
ceived a welcome there. Fairfax was placed at its head. 
The Self-denying Ordinance was suspended in favor of 
Cromwell, whose services could hardly be spared. He 
was named Lieutenant-General. There would be no 
hesitation now about beating the king too much. 

There was the more reason for energy as a powerful 
diversion in favor of the king was threatening from Scot- 
land. Scarcely more than a month after 
1 13- Montrose ^^ battle of Marston Moor, Montrose rode 

in bcotland. ' 

across the border northwards, with only two 
companions, to rouse the Highlanders in favor of the 
king. He was received with the utmost enthusiasm. If 
they did not care much for Charles they cared a great 
deal for plunder, and they bore a special hatred to the 
Campbells, the great clan which tyrannized over the 
lesser clans, and the head of which was the king's 
enemy, Argyle. Montrose was the first man who dis- 
covered the capacity of the Highlanders for sustained 
war. Dashing with hghtning-like rapidity from one side 
of Scotland to the other, he crushed every army which 
was brought against him. Argyle's lands were harried 
with a terrible destruction ; Dundee was taken and 
sacked : the heavy Lowland troops panted after his fiery 



1 644- Marston Aloor a7id Naseby. 149 

course in vain. The New Model would have to bear 
the whole brunt of the English war. The Scots who 
had fought the year before at Marston Moor were hesi- 
tating, looking back over their shoulders as it were, to 
see if they were not needed home. 

The New Model was equal to its task. On June 14 it 
met the king's army at Naseby, in the very centre of 
England. Charles was beaten into utter 
ruin. He never ventured to lift his head June 14. 
again in the field. Some months were to Battle of 

pass away before all the English counties Naseby. 

were cleared of royalist troops, and before all the forti- 
fied houses held by royalist garrisons were stormed or 
reduced to capitulation. But the final triumph was only 
a question of time. Raglan castle, the last post which 
held out for the king in England, surrendered in August, 
1646. 

Better tidings, too, came from Scotland. Montrose, 
emboldened by victory, had ventured out of the High- 
lands in the spirit of his favorite verses — 

He either fears his fate too much 

Or his deserts are small, 
That dares not put it to the touch 

To gain or lose it all. 

Full of confidence he approached the English border. 
But the Highlanders were back amongst the 
mountains to secure their booty. With a a 15. Battle of 
handful of men around him, Montrose was ' '^ ^"^ 
surprised at Philiphaugh by a force sent from the Scottish 
army in England. It was a slaughter rather than a fight, 
and Montrose's chance of ruling Scotland or of succor- 
ing; the king in Enjiland had come to an end. 



150 The Dow nfiZ II of Royalty. 1646. 



Section IV. — The Army and the Parliament. 

Swift acknowledgment that kingship was hencefor- 
ward impossible except on his enemies' terms was now 
, ^ Charles' one chance of safety. Unhappily, 

A. D. 1646. i. i. ■/ 

g I. Tue king decision of any kind to do anything un- 
wi e cu s. pigg^ga^j-^t ^,3^5 3^]^3^ygQut of the question with 
him. With his utter blindness to the thoughts and 
feelings of the world around him, he was puffed up with 
the thought that no party in the State could do without 
him, and that he had but to play off their mutual jealou- 
sies against one another, and so come to his own by in- 
trigue. After futile negotiations with the Parliament, 
he made up his mind at last to trust himself to the Scots. 
On May 5, 1646, he entered their camp at Newark. The 
Scots, in order to secure their guest or their prize from 
the English army, carried him off to Newcastle. 

Whatever else the Scots might expect of Charles, 

they were sure to expect him to do something for Presby- 

terianism, and he was thus able to fancy 

fr'Feeiing in that if he was very clever they might be 

the Englisii brought into collision with the New Model. 

army. ° 

In the New Model the feeling against Pres- 
byterianism, or rather against the refusal of toleration 
which sheltered itself under the name of Presbyterianism, 
was growing more bitter than ever. Richard Baxter, an 
active preacher and controversialist, hating sectarianism 
and Independency to the backbone, had been to see 
what the army looked like. " Abundance of the common 
troopers," he reported, " and many of the officers, I 
found to be honest, sober, orthodox men, and others 
tractable, ready to hear the truth, and of upright inten- 



1646. The Army and the Parliament. 151 

tions ; but a few proud, self-conceited, hot-headed secta- 
ries had got into the highest places, and were Cromwell's 
chief favorites, and by their heat and activity bore down 
the rest, or carried them along with them, and were the 
soul of the army. They said, "What were the 1 irds of 
England but William the Conqueror's colonels, or the 
barons but his majors, or the knights but his captains ? 
They plainly showed me that they thought God's provi- 
dence would cast the trust of religion and the kingdom 
upon them as conquerors." 

In these last words lay the key of the immediate 
future. These men had not exposed their lives in order 
that they might be sent home again without 
liberty of conscience. It was for Parliament ? 3- Cromwell 

on loleration. 

to put an end to the Presbyterian tyranny. 
If not, Parliament must take the consequences. Of this 
resolution Cromwell, with all moderation, was the firm 
exponent. He had no enmity against the Presbyterians 
as such. " Presbyterians, Independents, all," he wrote, 
" have here the same spirit of faith and prayer, the same 
presence and answer. They agree here, have no names 
of difference ; pity it is it should be otherwise anywhere. 
For, brethren, in things of the mind we look for no 
compulsion but that of light and reason." The rougher 
demand of the common soldier would give strength to 
the modest language of the chief. 

All through 1645 Parliament and Assembly had been 
busy in completing the Presbyterian arrangements for 
England. By the end of the year there was 

1 • r 11^^, ? 4- Proposi- 

a large accession of strength to the Tolera- tions of Par- 
tion party in Parliament. New elections ^'^'^'^"t- 
were held to fill up vacancies,* and these mostly went 
against the Presbyterians. But the Presbyterians were 
still strong enough to settle the terms which were to be 



152 The Downfall of Royalty. 1 646. 

offered to the king. On July 14 the parliamentary pro- 
positions were delivered to Charles at Newcastle. He 
was to surrender the power over the militia to Parlia- 
ment for twenty years, and he was to rule, as far as he 
was permitted to rule at all, as a Presbyterian king, to 
take the Covenant himself, and to support the new Pres- 
byterian order of things in the Church. Charles had no 
intention of doing anything of the kind. "All my 
endeavors," he wrote to the queen, " must be the delay- 
ing of my answers till there be considerable parties visi- 
bly formed ; " in other words, till Presbyterians and In- 
dependents had come to blows, and were ready to take 
him at his own price. 

Presbyterians and Independents, however, did not 

seem inclined to come to blows to please Charles. For 

six months he declined to give any answer 

A. D. 1647. . . 

Jan. 30. to the propositions. At last the Scots per- 

surreader tae^ ccivcd that nothing Satisfactory could be got 
^'"S- out of him. They intimated to the English 

Parliament that they were ready to surrender him, and 
to go home to Scotland. All they wanted now was that 
the expenses of their campaign should be paid, Four 
hundred thousand pounds were owing to them for their 
services in England., The money was paid down at 
once, and on January 30, 1647, the Scots marched out of 
Newcastle, leaving Charles in the hands of Parliamenta- 
ry commissioners. 

Charles was now lodged at Holmby House, in North- 
amptonshire, and treated with all outward 
^t'ch^rles show of respcct. It seemed as if the oppor- 
at Holmby tunitv for which he had been watching was 

House. - -tT 1- 

at last to occur. The army and the Parlia- 
ment were beginning to quarrel. 

Knowing its danger from the army, the Presbyterian 



1646. The Army and the Parliament. 153 

majority in the Commons suggested that the time had 
come to disband the army, that strange _ 

1 • u • • J .u ? 7- Dispute 

army, m which every opmion under the sun between the 
found refuge, and in which soldiers occupied ^Tpkri^a- 
their leisure hours not in the cricket-field or '"'^"^• 
the public-house, but in theological argument or Scriptu- 
ral exposition. The contemptuous disregard for such 
doctrines as still prevailed in En^jland was as distasteful 
to the ruling Presbyterians as the contempt of the Pres- 
byterians for earlier forms had been distasteful to Laud. 
" If I should worship the sun or moon, like the Persians," 
said one of them, " or that pewter-pot on the table, 
nobody has anything to do with it. " 

Such an army claimed to be something more than an 
ordinary army. It had not fought simply 
for the supremacy of Parliament. It had army the 
fought for liberty for its opinions, and it re- fSTgfo^^^ 
fused to allow itself to be disbanded till that ^'''^"y* 
liberty was assured. The soldiers regarded themselves, 
as indeed they were, as a power in the State. 

They were the more resolute as Charles and the Pres- 
byterians had been drawing near to one another. On 
May 12 the king had at last accepted the June 4 
parliamentary propositions, though not with- I ?• The 
out some important modifications. For three brought to 
years, and three years only, he would be a ^ ^^^^' 

Presbyterian king, reserving religious liberty for himself. 
The army determined otherwise. On the evening of 
June 3 a certain Cornet Joyce, followed by a party of 
horse, rode up to Holmby House, and told the king that 
he was commissioned to remove him. The next morning 
he repeated his assertion. The king asked where his 
commission was. "There is my commission," answered 
Joyce, pointing to his soldiers drawn up before the 
M 



154 The Downfall of Royalty, 1647. 

window. There was no resisting such an argument, and 
Charles was safely conducted to Newmarket. 

The army raised its demands. Eleven leaders of the 
^u Presbyterian party, they declared, must be 

Q 10. The 

exclusion excluded from the House. Helpless in the 

eleven grasp of the army, the eleven ceased to at- 

members. ^g^d the debates. But the City of London 

was even more Presbyterian than the Parliament. A 
City mob burst into the House, ordering the Commons to 
stand firm against the army. The army took advantage 
of the tumult. Marching rapidly upon London, the 
troops took military possession of the City on August 7. 
The eleven members were summarily got rid of, and 
many of their Presbyterian followers voluntarily with- 
drew. 

In the plays of Richard II. and Henry IV, Shake- 
speare lays down the conditions and the results of a suc- 
cessful revolution. The incapable ruler who 

g II. The . - , . 

army in neglects the mtcrcst of the nation and 

^°^^'^' thinks only of his own cannot maintain his 

authority. The work of governing must of necessity be 
done, and some one more capable than himself must be 
put in his place. But every violent change brings its 
own penalty with it. Old habits of obedience are broken 
off, and the new rule introduced by force is subject to 
daily questioning, and even to open attack. A rebellion, 
however justifiable, is the parent of other rebellions 
perhaps not justifiable at all. So it was now. The 
sword which had smitten down Charles smote down the 
House of Commons. The violation of a legislative as- 
sembly is no light thing. It is the substitution of the 
rule of force for that of discussion. Yet if ever it was 
justifiable it was now. Parliament, which lived by dis- 
cussion within its own walls, was longing to suppress dis- 



1 6 4 7 • The A rmy and the Parliameiit. 155 

cussion everywhere else. The army was permeated with 
discussion from one end to the other. The blow which 
it struck was on behalf of that freedom of thought- and 
speech without which the supremacy of a Parliament is 
as despotic as the supremacy of a king. 

The army, too, knew well that the hands that wielded 
the sword could not sway the sceptre also. Its chiefs at 
once drew up certain heads of proposals, 
which it offered to the king for his accept- posalsto?he" 
ance. They proclaimed complete religious ^'"^' 
liberty for all except the Roman Catholics. Those who 
chose to do so might submit to the jurisdiction of bishops. 
Those who chose to do so might submit to the jurisdic- 
tion of Presbyters. But no civil penalties were to be 
inflicted upon those who objected equally to Episcopacy 
and to Presbyterianism. 

No proposal so wise and comprehensive had yet been 
made. It gave to Charles, as it gave to the ^, 

. ' o Nov. II. 

Presbyterians, all that they could fairly ask. \ 13. The 
But neither Charles nor even ParUament to'thcis'llof 
was prepared for so admirable a settlement, ^^^g^'^- 
and the leaders of the army withdrew their proposals, 
hoping to engraft some practical toleration on the origi- 
nal parliamertary propositions. The king thought he 
saw his opportunity, tried with feeble cunning to play off 
one set of his opponents against the other, and then, 
when he found that they preferred a compromise with 
one another to submission to himself, got on horse-back 
late one evening and galloped southward, finally taking 
refuge in the Isle of Wight. He was there lodged in 
Carisbrooke Castle, from which place he wrote to express 
his readiness to negotiate afresh on the basis of Presby^ 
terianism for three years and a moderate toleration. 



i{ 6 Tkg Downfall of Royalty. 1 647. 



Section V. — The Second Civil War and the Execution 
of the King. 
During the past negotiations the conduct of Crom- 
vvell and the army leaders had been masterly. They 
had seen that, if their object of toleration 

A. D. 1647. . 1 . , 

1 1. The king could be gamed m any way whatever, it was 
better that it should be obtained with the 
concurrence of Parliament. But this lull in the contro- 
versy thus originating between Parhament and army 
drove the Scots into despair. If there was to be any 
sort of toleration at all, they would have nothing more to 
do with the English Parliament. When a negotiation 
was opened at Newport on this basis, the Scottish com- 
missioners entered into a secret treaty with Charles by 
which he bound himself to acknowledge the Presbyterian 
discipline in England for three years, and to suppress 
the Independents and all other sects. The Scots, on 
their part, promised to furnish him with an army to re- 
store hinri to the throne. 

In spite of the reluctance of Argyle and other notable 
Scotchmen, war between Scotland and Eng- 

A. D. 1648. ' ° 

April. land was imminent. . In April 1648 an army, 

invasi^on'^ Under the Duke of Hamilton, was ordered 

preparing. ^^ ^^^^^ ^j^^ border 

Charles at last got the darling wish of his heart. Two 
of his enemies were about to fight with one another, and 
„ ^ ,. .he would come by his own. Never was the 

§ 3. Indignation ' 

of the English vanity of human wishcs more Strongly ex- 
^^^^' emplified. A thrill of angry horror ran 

through the English army when they learned that, in the 
midst of negotiations, the perfidy of the king had de- 
livered England up to Scottish Presbyterianism. The 



1648. The Seco?id Civil War. 157 

soldiers met together to seek the Lord, to wrestle with 
Him in prayer, that He might reveal to them the cause 
why such evil had befallen them. Their own minds 
supplied them with an answer. Their first duty was to 
fight the enemy. Their second duty, if ever the Lord 
brought them back in peace, was " to call Charles Stuart, 
that man of blood, to an account for that blood he had 
shed and mischief he had done to his utmost against the 
Lord's cause and people in these poor nations." 

On every side Royalist insurrections blazed up in an- 
ticipation of the arrival of the Scots. Wales was the first 
to rise. Cornwall and Devonshire came next. There 
were riots in London, and Kent was soon in full revolt. 
Cromwell hurried down to Wales, Fairfax 
suppressed the Kentish rising. The m.ain rections^n 
body of the Southern insurgents threw them- ^^^ ■ 

selves into Colchester, were surrounded by Fairfax 
and pinned there, whilst Cromwell was making ready 
to deal with the Northern danger. 

By the middle of July Cromwell had suppressed the 
Welsh rising, and was marching steadily northwards. 
On August 17, with 9,000 men, he swept 
down at Preston upon the 24,000 men which g 5 Defeat 
gathered round Hamilton. After a three of the Scots. 
days' battle Hamilton's army was swept out of existence. 
On the 28th Colchester surrendered to Fairfax after a 
terrible siege. The second civil war had come to a swift 
end. 

Whilst the army had been fighting royalism, the 
House of Commons had been carrying on negotiations 
with the king. Presbyterian members, frightened away 
in the preceding autumn, had come back to 
their seats, and a renewed Presbyterian ferianismm 
majority was the result. As soon as they ^^e Commons. 



158 The Downfall of Royalty. 1648. 

saw Cromwell well engaged in the war, the Commons 
issued a fierce ordinance for the suppression of blas- 
phemies and heresies, condemning to death the holders 
of certain specified opinions, and imposing the penalty 
of imprisonment on all who held, amongst other things, 
that Church-government by Presbytery was anti-Chris- 
tian or unlawful. 

The negotiations with the king — the Treaty of New- 
port, as it was called — were now reopened. But even 
the defeat of his Scotch allies wrung no sub- 
Treaty of mission from Charles. He had no mind to 
Newport. come to terms with the parliamentary Pres- 
byterians. His negotiation was all a sham. He had 
fresh hopes from Ireland, or from Holland ; and he had 
returned to his old game of arguing much and conclud- 
ing nothing. 

To that game the victorious army had determined to 
put an end. England must be brought under a settled 
T,, government ; and a settled government, with 

Nov. ■20. ^ o » 

§8. The army Charles to. Stir up discord against every ele- 

remonbtrance. *. • ^i o^ • 

ment m the State m turn, was a sheer impos- 
sibility. In a long statement of their case the soldiers 
laid down that a king was but the highest functionary of 
the State, and that if he deliberately abused his trust he 
was Hable to be called to account. It was evident that 
Charles could be bound by no ties, that he regarded the 
nation as his own, to deal with as he pleased. They 
demanded, therefore, that the king should be brought to 
justice. 

In such a mood the soldiers were not likely to trust 
much to Parliament. Their first move was to gain pos- 

Dec. I. session of the king's person. Charles was 

it iSst'''"^ removed from Carisbrooke and safely lodged 
Castle. at Hurst Castle, a desolate spot at the end 



t649- The Scco?id Ch'il War. 159 

of a spit of land running out into the sea. For a mo- 
ment Charles fancied that murder was intended. He was 
not in the hands of murderers. 

The next step of the army was to overcome the re- 
sistance of Parhament. On December 5 the Commons 
declared for reconciliation with the king; 
in other words, for endangering all the ?io?' Pride's 
valuable results of the civil war. The next P^^fge. 
morning was the morning of Pride's Purge. Colonel 
Pride was btationed at the door of the House, to turn 
back such members as were displeasing to the army- 
leaders. In all ninety-six members were excluded, and 
the House became a mere instrument for the time in the 
hands of the army. It was a mere residue of a House, 
the number still voting being about fifty or sixty. 

Such a House was sure to be compliant. 
On the 13th a resolution was passed that the king at 
king should be brought to justice. He was 'Windsor, 
already on the road to Windsor under a strong guard. 

On the first day of the new year a High Court of Jus- 
tice was appointed by the Commons for the trial of the 
king, the Lords refusing to take any part in 
the act. On the 4th the Commons declared f^; ^h^' 
that the People were, under God, the source ^'f^ *^°"''' 

of Justice. 

of all just power, and that the Commons, 
being chosen by the people, formed the supreme power 
in England, and had no need of the concurrence of king 
or House of Lords. The principle of national sovereign- 
ty was surely never declared by a less representative 
body. In accordance with this resolution the High 
Court of Justice was finally constituted on the 9th by the 
authority of the Commons alone. 

On January 19 Charles was brought to Whitehall. 
The next morning his trial commenced. Of 135 mem- 



i6o The Commonwealth. 1649. 

bers of the court only sixty-seven, Cromwell 

Jan. 20. . r I 

\ 13. Trial of being one of them, were present. When 
^°^' Fairfax's name was called his wife cried 

out, " He is not here, and will never be ; you do wrong 
to name him." To the charge brought the king replied 
by simply denying the authority of the court. As he 
refused to plead, the trial was reduced to a mere for- 
mality. On the 27th the King of England was sentenced 
to death. 

On the 29th the sentence was carried into execution. 

Jan. 29. He took leave of his two youngest children 

exetiitk>n alone who were still in England. Then he 

stepped firmly on the scaffold, outside the 

window bent his head upon the block, and all was over. 



CHAPTER Vn. 

THE COMMONWEALTH. 

Section I. — Cromweir s Last Victories. 

Nothing in Charles' life became him like the manner 
in which he left it. His own conviction of the justice of 
3 1 Charles' ^^^ cause had been so thorough that he had 
view of his own seen evcn in the underhand intrigues which 
aut onty. ^^^ ^^ ^.^ ^^^.^ nothing but legitimate 

weapons to be used in defence of the nation whose 
happiness was in his eyes inextricably bound up with his 
own authority. His opinion was clearly expressed in 
those lines of the Roman poet of the declining empire 
which Charles wrote in a book not long before his death, 
as a testimony against the levelling and anti-monarchic 
spirits which predominated at that time : " He is de- 



i649- Cromweir s Last Victories. i6i 

ceived who thinks that there can be slavery under an 
excellent prince. There is no fairer form of liberty than 
under a pious king." 

Against this notion the leaders in the army had uttered 
their protest. They thought to emphasize their words by 
the blow on the scaffold at Whitehall. If 
any political crime committed with good in- L^edTn^gs^'^"' 
tentions deserves the extreme penalty of the ?.^^'"f "^ ^'"^ 
law, that penalty was deserved by Charles 
by his breach of faith at the time of the treaty of New- 
port. But it was not from the law that Charles had 
suffered. Legal tribunals are not infallible. But they 
are composed in such a way as to secure as much im- 
partiality as possible, and are accusi.tomed to act accord- 
ing to certain rules which offenders are aware of in ad- 
vance. To reach Charles the army leaders were obliged 
to overturn the House of Commons, to pass over the re- 
sistance of the House of Lords, and to nominate a new 
tribunal to decide by rules hitherto unknown. That 
which was done would have been just as legal if the 
officers had brought Charles before a court-martial, and 
ordered out a platoon of infantry to shoot him. 

Never was any army more desirous of escaping from 
the necessity of using brute force than this one. The 
cause which it sustained was the right cause, 
and it sustained it worthily with the pen as leaio^^no^t"' 
well as with the sword. But they could not merely 

•' formal. 

endure that all their sacrifices should go for 
nothing ; that foolish, unwise prejudices should have the 
upper hand ; that armies should gather round Charles in 
the absurd expectation that he would rule otherwise than 
he had ruled before. If only Charles' head were off, 
justice would be done, and men's minds would no longer 
be set on so ridiculous a quest as that of a Presbyterian 



1 62 The Co77imonwealth. 1649. 

Charles I. Not so ! That which seemed to end all ended 
nothing. Brute force had been put forth, and that was all. 
It was bad enough to contend with the elements of confu- 
sion which had gathered round Charles. It would be worse 
to contend with them when the narrow-minded and self- 
willed prince had been elevated to the position of a saint 
and a martyr, and when the defence of violated law, and 
the maintenance of popular rights against the iron will of 
a triumphant soldiery, came to be the watchword of the 
followers of Charles XL 

For the moment a government was established. The 
Commonwealth of England took the place of the King- 
1 4 Estab- *^°^ °^ England A Council of State, com- 

lishment of the posed " of forty-one leading parliamentary 

Commonwealth. „ . , i -i- 

officials and military personages, exercised 
the executive power. The House of Lords had already 
ceased to exist. The fragment of the House of Com- 
mons, practically seldom exceeding some fifty members, 
played the part of a Parliament. Of this body the 
Council of State formed the great majority, and was 
thus able to register its own decrees under parhamentary 
forms. In quiet times such a burlesque on parliamenta- 
ry government could not have lasted long ; and a real 
elected House of Commons was amongst the ideals of 
the army. But the times were not quiet, and there was 
fighting enough in prospect to make the leaders of the 
army disinclined at present to tamper further with the 
constitution. Wild ideas were seething in the ranks ; 
but an attempt to mutiny in their favor was suppressed 
by the iron hand of Cromwell. 

Cromwell was first called to Ireland. Ever since the 

massacre of 1641 Ireland had been the scene of anarchy 

Aug. 15. and slaughter. The Royalists were now 

L^Ire^Ind."^^" Combined in alliance with the native Roman 



1O50. OoniwtW s Last Victories. 163 

Catholic population against the parliamentary forces 
cooped up in Dublin. If Dublin fell, an independent gov- 
ernment would be established which might hold out the 
hand to the English Royalists. On Aug. 1 5 Cromwell land- 
ed at Dubhn. On Sept. 1 1 , he stormed Drogheda. Quarter 
was refused, and 2,000 men with arms in their hands were 
put to the sword. Even Cromwell felt a half suspicion that 
some excuse was needed, though the refusal of quarter 
had been a matter of everyday occurrence in the German 
war, and had been not without precedent even in Eng- 
land, "lam persuaded," he wrote, "that this is a 
righteous judgment of God upon these barbarous 
wretches, who have imbrued their hands in so much in- 
nocent blood ; and that it will tend to prevent the effu- 
sion of blood for the future : which are the satisfactory 
grounds to such actions, which otherwise cannot but 
work remorse and regret." The massacre of Drogheda 
was but the beginning of victory. At Wexford there 
was another slaughter, this time without orders from the 
general. Town after town surrendered. In the next 
spring Cromwell was able to quit Ireland, leaving what 
work remained to be done to be accomplished by his 
successors. The conquest was prosecuted with savage 
effectiveness, and when at last, in 1652, the war came to 
an end, three out of four provinces of Ireland were con- 
fiscated for the benefit of the conquering race. The 
landowners of Ireland were driven from their homes, to 
find what sustenance they could in the wilds of Con- 
naught. 

It was time for Cromwell to be back in England. 
The young Commonwealth was looked , 

J ^ A, D. 1050. 

upon askance by the European Powers. §6. Montrose 

J- r ■ 11 1 J in Scotland. 

One of Its ambassadors was murdered at 

the Hague. Another was murdered at Madrid with gen- 



164 The Coimnonwealth. 1650. 

eral applause. Montrose, who was living in exile, started 
once more for his native country on a mission of ven- 
geance for his slain master. In the spring of 1650 he 
landed in the Orkneys. Crossing to Caithness he found 
no one prepared to rise in his behalf. It may be that 
there was no jealousy of Argyle so far north, and no 
enthusiasm for the king. At any rate, he was over- 
powered, carried to Edinburgh, and hanged as a rebel. 

If the Scots would not tolerate Montrose, they had 
not given up their own idea of living under a Presby- 
June 24. terian king. They proclaimed the young 

iLiSol-' prince— Charles II., as they called him— 
^^'^^- king, and invited him to Scotland. Much 

against his will he swore to the Covenant. On June 24 
he landed in Scotland. The idea of Charles II. as a 
Covenanting king seems absurd enough now that his 
character is known. He was then but a lad, and the 
Scotch ministers thought they could mould him to their 
wishes. Cromwell had not gained much by executing 
one Charles. Another Charles was there, with a whole 
Scottish nation behind his back, and with a large part 
of the English nation ready to support him, if it could 
be done with safety. The head of one man was off his 
shoulders ; but the sentiment which had made that man 
powerful had not been eradicated. 

Cromwell hastened to Scotland to nip the mischief in 
the bud. Fairfax with all friendliness declined to go. 

? 8 Crom "^^ ^^^ ^°^ ^^^' ^^ ^^^^' ^^^ ^^ Scotch had 

well in not a right to settle their own government 

as they pleased. On July 22 the army 
crossed the border. On the 28th it was before Edinburgh. 
But the Scottish army was entrenched in front, too 
strongly posted to be attacked. Cromwell had to retreat 
to save his men from starvation. He Hngered as long as 



1650. CrotnweWs Last Victories. 165 

he could, but on August 31, he marched back to 
Dunbar. 

His prospects now were forlorn enough. The Scotch 
had seized the pass through which the road led to Eng- 
land. On one side of him was the sea, on 

Sept. 3. 

the other a long hill, now crowned with the gg. Battle of 
Scottish army. Escape seemed difficult, 
well nigh hopeless. But the Scots were weary of wait- 
ing. On the morning of September 3 they began to de- 
scend the hill. Oliver saw his advantage. As the enemy 
reached the bottom he charged into them, dashed them 
into sheer confusion, and drove them back into the 
r^nks behind them. " Let God arise, let his enemies be 
i»cattered ! " were the words which rose to the lips of the 
■*-'ictor. The Scottish army was utterly ruined. 

Cromwell was soon at Edinburgh, pleading scornfully 
and yet half-tenderly with the Presbyterian 
mmisters. A large part of Scotland sub- well at 
mitted to him. But there was still an army Edinburgh. 
in the field which refused to submit, and during the 
winter and spring that army gathered strength. 

In August the Scottish leaders resolved to push for 
England. An English insurrection in Cromwell's rear 
would make his position in Scotland untenable. With 
the young king in their midst, and Crom- 
well hard upon their heels, they marched g'n.B ttie 
doggedly southwards. Their hopes were cester?'^ 
disappointed. The fear of Cromwell kept 
those at home whose hearts were beating to join the 
Scots. Almost unaided the invaders struggled on till 
.they reached Worcester. There Cromwell overtook 
them. Slaughter or capture was the lot of that doomed 
army. " The dimensions of this mercy," wrote Cromwell, 
" are above my thoughts. It is, for aught I know a 



1 66 The Commonwealth. 1651. 

crowning mercy." He spoke truly. Never again was 
he called upon to draw sword in England. 

Cromwell was at least spared the anxiety of deciding 

what was to be done with a second royal prisoner. 

Charles threw himself upon the loyalty of 

§. 12. Escape ^ ■' •' 

of Charles a Royalist gentleman in the neighbor- 

hood, and he was not deceived. In after 
days men told how he had been seated in the branches 
of an oak whilst the troopers who were searching for 
him rode below. Dressed as a servant he rode to Bris- 
tol, with a lady riding on a pillion behind. At Char- 
mouth he hoped to find a vessel to carry him to France. 
But the master of the ship refused to go. It was not till 
he reached Brighton, then a small fishing village, that 
he found the help that he wanted, and made his escape 
from England in safety. 

Section II. — Dissolution of the Long Parlia7nent. 

" Peace," sung Milton, inhis sonnetto Cromwell, "hath 
her victories no less renowned than war." Peace, too, 
§. I. The h^s her forlorn hopes, her stout battling for 

wotk of the a. cause lost by anticipation, and destined 

Revolution ■' ^ 

accom- only to reappear in other days when the 

standard shall have been entrusted to arms 
more fortunate if not more stalwart. Cromwell and the 
higher officers in the army, Sir Henry Vane and the 
nobler spirits yet remaining in the Parliament, were alike 
bent upon realizing the same high object — a free state 
governed in accordance with the resolutions of its elected 
representatives, and offering guarantees for individual 
liberty of thought and speech, without which parliamen- 
tary government is only another name for tyranny. But 
their powers were not equal to their wishes. The revo- 
lutionary force in the country had been spent long before 



1652. Dissolution of the Long Parliament. 167 

the execution of Charles ; and now that his possible 
successor was a youth of whom no harm was known, the 
Royalist flood was mounting steadily. Even the origi- 
nal feeling of the nation had been not against royalty, 
but against the particular way in which the king had 
acted ; and the necessity for dethronement and the sup- 
posed necessity for execution had been founded upon 
reasoning which had never stirred the popular heart. 
The nation at large did not really care for a common- 
wealth, did not care for religious liberty. The violent 
suppression of the episcopalian worship had alienated 
as many as had been alienated by Laud's injudicious 
resuscitation of obsolete forms. Most Englishmen would 
have been quite content if they could have got a king who 
would have shown some reasonable respect for the wishes 
of Parliament, and who would abstain from open illegality. 
In short, the leaders of the Commonwealth found 
themselves, in some sort, in the same position as that in 
which Laud found himself in 1629. They ^^ j^j^^g 
had an ideal of their own which they be- ^^ '^^l if^^- 

■' ers of the 

lieved to be really good for the nation, and Common- 
they hoped that by habituating the nation ^^^ 
to that which they thought best they could at last bring 
it to a right frame of mind. If their experiment and its 
failure is more interesting than Laud's experiment and 
its failure, it is because their ideal was far higher than 
his. It broke down not because they were wrong, but 
because the nation was not as yet ripe for acceptance of 
anything so good. 

The difference of opinion which slowly grew up be- 
tween army leaders and Parliamentary leaders was only 
the natural result of the tacit acknowledg- ^ ^ ^g^^ 
ment of this rock ahead, which was none \ 3- Scheme 

tor a new 

the less felt because both parties shrunk Parliament. 



i68 T'he Commonwealth. 1652. 

from avowing it. A free Parliament would perhaps be 
a Royalist Parliament. In that case, it would probably 
care nothing about liberty, and would certainly care no- 
thing about Puritanism. How was the danger to be met ? 
The fifty or sixty men who called themselves a Parlia- 
ment had their own remedy for the disease. Let there 
be new elections to the vacant seats, but let their own 
seats not be vacated. Let these old members have power 
to reject such new members as seemed to them unfit to 
serve in Parhament. There would be something that 
looked like a free Parliament, and yet it would not be a 
free Parliament at all. Those only would be admitted 
who were thought by the old members to be the right 
sort of persons to influence the nation. 

The scheme, in fact, was a sham, and Cromwell dis- 
liked shams. He had another objection equally strong. 
, ^ If there was one thing for which he and his 

g 4. Crom- " 

well's objec- soldiers had fought and bled, it was for the 
sake of religious liberty, a liberty which was 
real enough as far as it went, even if it was much less 
comprehensive than that which has been accepted in 
later times. No security was offered for religious liberty 
under the new-old Parliament. There was nothing to 
prevent it from abolishing all that existed at any mo- 
ment it pleased. 

As often happens, moral repugnance came to the help 
of logical reasoning. Not a few of the members of Par- 
liament were conducting themselves in such a way as to 
forfeit the respect of all honest men. Against foreign 
foes, indeed, the Commonwealth had been 
I's. The ' successful. The navy reorganized by Vane 

NaSgadon l^ad cleared the seas of Royahst privateers. 
^^'^- Commercial jealousy against the Dutch had 

mingled with the tide of pohtical ill-feeling. In 165 1 the 



1653- Dissolution of the Long Parliament. 169 

Navigation Act was aimed at the Dutch carrying trade, 
which had flourished simply because the Dutch vessels 
were better built and long experience had enabled them 
to transport goods from one country to another more 
cheaply than the merchants of other nations. Hence- 
forth English vessels alone were to be allowed to import 
goods into England, excepting in the case of vessels be- 
longing to the country in which the goods were produced. 

War was the result. In January 1652 the seizure of 
Dutch ships began. The two sturdy an- ^ u. 1652. 

tagonists were well matched. There were tfthThe 

no decisive victories. But on the whole the Dutch. 

English had the upper hand. 

Such a war was expensive. Royalists were forced to 
compound for their estates forfeited by their adoption of 
the king's cause. Even if this measure had 
been fairly carried out the attempt to make tion in Par- 
one part of the nation pay for the expenses 'anient. 
of the whole was more likely to create dissension than 
to heal it. But it was not fairly carried out. Members 
of Parliament took bribes to let this man and that man 
off more easily than those who were less able to pay. 
The effects of unlimited power were daily becoming 
more manifest. To be the son or a nephew of one of 
the holders of authority was a sure passport to the pub- 
lic service. Forms of justice were disregarded, and the 
nation turned with vexation upon its so-called liberators, 
whose yoke was as heavy to bear as that which had been 
shaken off. 

Of this dissatisfaction Cromwell constituted himself the 
mouthpiece. His remedy for the evil which both sides 
dreaded was not the perpetuation of a ^ ^ ^551. 
Parliament which did not represent the §8.Crom- 

^ well s plan. 

nation, but the establishment of constitu- 

N 



170 The Commonwealth. 1653. 

tional securities, which would hmit the powers of a freely 
elected Parliament. He and his officers proposed that a 
committee formed of members of Parliament and officers 
should be nominated to deliberate on the requisite 
securities. 

On April 19 he was assured or believed himself to be 
assured by one of the leading members that nothing 
would be done in a hurry. On the morning 
1 9. Diss'olu- of the 20th he was told that Parliament was 
Long Pariia- hurriedly passing its own bill in defiance of 
°^^'^'^- his objections. Going at once to the House 

he waited till the decisive question was put to the vote. 
Then he rose. The Parliament, he said, had done well 
in their pains and care for the public good. But it had 
been stained with " injustice, delays of justice, self-in- 
terest." Then, when a member interrupted him, he 
blazed up into anger. " Come, come ! we have had 
enough of this. I will put an end to this. It is not fit 
you should sit here any longer." Calling in his soldiers, 
he bade them clear the House, following the members 
with words of obloquy as they were driven out. " What 
shall we do with this bauble?" he said, taking up the 
mace. " Take it away." Then, as if feeling the burthen 
of the work which he was doing pressing upon him, he 
sought to excuse himself, as he had sought to excuse 
himself after the slaughter of Drogheda, " It is you," 
he said, " that have forced me to do this. I have sought 
the Lord night and day, that He would rather slay me 
than put me upon the doing of this work." 



Section III. — The Asse?nbly of Nominees. 

Every political institution which England possessed 
was now levelled with the ground. King, Lords, and 



1 653- The Assembly of Nominees. lyr 

Commons had fallen, as Cromwell explained, ? i. Viewr 
because they had failed to perform their 
trust. In every case the judgment had been delivered 
not by the nation but by the army. In the eyes of the 
army leaders a sort of Divine right attached to their 
actions. God, they held, " by their victories, had so 
called them to look after the government of the land, 
and so entrusted them with the welfare of all His people 
here, that they were responsible for it, and might not in 
conscience stand still while anything was done which 
they thought was against the interest of the people of 
God." 

How would this power be exercised? Was the army 
to aim only at maintaining liberty of conscience ; or was 
it also to aim at giving effect in other matters 

° ^^ July 4. 

to the views of the few at the expense of the I2. The 
wishes of the many ? At least it had no 
thought of grasping political power itself. In the name 
of the General and the Council of officers, a body of 140 
nominees were gathered together, called afterwards, in 
derision, Barebone's Parliament, from the name of one 
Praise-God Barebone who sat in it. The men were not 
mere fanatics, but they were most of them of a strongly 
Puritan character, many of them being foremost amongst 
the leading sects. In the speech which Cromwell ad- 
dressed to them he dwelt at length on their qualifications 
as godly men. It was not now to prepare a constitution 
that they had come together. They were to rule Eng- 
land simply on the grounds of their godliness. The 
time might come when an elective Parliament would 
take their place, when the people were fitted by God to 
elect and to be elected. " Would all were the Lord's 
people ! " When they were, there would be no further 
difficulty about elections. 



172 The Co}n?nonwealth. 1653. 

It was Cromwell's ideal; men were to be excluded 
from all part in government till they were fit to take 
„ _ , part in it, an ideal not altogether dissimilar 

2 3. Proceed- ^ 

ingsofthe from that of Charles and Strafford. It was 

sem y. destined to a riide awakening. The godly- 

men turned out the most crotchety and unpractical set 
ever gathered together. They had no knowledge of 
practical affairs, no sympathy for the commonplace, un- 
ideal men who form the bulk of the community. They 
proposed to abolish the Court of Chancery, without sub- 
stituting any other tribunal for it, and to suppress the 
payment of tithes without providing any other means of 
support for the clergy. In a few months the Assembly 
had become as unpopular as the Long Parliament. Law 
and order, it seemed, were to be offered up a sacrifice 
to a handful of dreamers. It would be well if the worst 
had now been told. Fifth Monarchy men, as they were 
called, seriously declared that the time had come for the 
reign of the saints to begin, and that they were the saints 
to rule. All men who had anything to lose, especially 
the clergy and the lawyers, turned their eyes upon 
Cromwell. For it was known that Cromwell's strong 
common sense would preserve him from the extrava- 
gances which swept away lighter heads. 

In the Assembly itself the party of resistance formed 
a strong minority. One day in December the minority 

got up early in the morning, came down to 
§4^*Resigiia- the Housc, and before their opponents knew 
A°senibi^^ what they were about, resigned their powers 

into the hands of Cromwell. The political 
institutions of the nation had been swept away. But the 
social institutions were less easily touched. At a later 
time, a long course of abuses festering in the very heart 
of society itself, stirred up the French nation to a revo- 



1 65 3 • Oliver' s First Parliament. 173 

lution which left no time-honored principle unassailed, 
no established arrangement unquestioned. Centuries of 
fairly good government in England had naturally re- 
sulted in no such feeling. The majority of the Assembly 
were doubtless right in pointing to real abuses. But 
they wanted to do in a few weeks hurriedly and igno- 
rantly a work which it would take years of the most ac- 
curate knowledge and the most patient inquiry to ac- 
complish. They forgot that it is not enough to mean 
well in order to do well. The nominees sank again into 
private life as little regretted by the nation as the Long 
Parliament had been regretted before them. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Oliver's protectorate. 

Section I. — Oliver's First Parliament. 

Amongst the leading officers there had, doubtless, been 
a knowledge of what was coming. On December 16 they 
drew up an Instrument of Government, a 
Constitution, as we should say. The idea frVhe 
of temporarily superseding the representa- diffiaiities of 

/ , . , , ^ the situation. 

tives of the nation was dropped. There was to 
be again an elected Parliament, consisting of one House. 
But there were two lessons taught by the history of the 
Long Parliament, which had not been forgotten by the 
officers. In the first place, a large assembly cannot pro- 
fitably govern directly. In the second place, there are 
certain rights, such as those of mental and religious 
freedom, which ought to be beyond the power of any 



174 Oliver'' s Protectorate. 1653. 

g-overnment to overthrow. The time would come when 
these principles would enter into the constitutional habits 
of the nation. And yet it was difficult to teach Parlia- 
ments the needful lesson ; and the instruction was all the 
more difficult because the ideas which the officers wished 
to prevail were only the ideas of a minority of the nation. 
To institute an executive Government responsible to 
Parliament would be to expose it to be called upon to 
become the instrument of religious tyranny in one shape 
or another. 

The executive power, therefore, was lodged in Crom- 
well as Lord Protector, a title which had been borne in 
old days by regents who had governed 
stmment^of in the time of a king who was a minor. He 
Government. ^^g bound in cases of importance to con- 
sult the Council of State, which filled up all vacancies in 
its own body, The Parliament, on the other hand, had 
the very largest powers. It alone could grant supplies 
and levy taxes. If the Protector could issue temporary 
ordinances during the interval between the sessions, he 
was bound to lay them before Parliament when it met 
and to obtain its assent to their continuance. Parliament, 
too, could make laws whether the Protector approved of 
them or not. It was to meet once a year, and when it 
had once met, till five months were passed he could 
neither dissolve it nor prorogue it. 

The Instrument of Government was the first of hun- 
dreds of written constitutions which have since spread 
a , The first over the world, of which the American is 
written con- the most conspicuous example, in which a 

stitution. , . . ... , 

barrier is set up against the entire predom- 
inance of any one set of official persons, by attributing 
strictly limited functions to each. The Protector, the 
Council of State, and the Parliament each had his or 



1 65 4- Oliver' s First Parliament. 175 

their recognised sphere of action ; yet each needed the 
co-operation of the other. In America provision is made, 
by the necessity which the president is under of leav- 
ing office at the end of four years, for an appeal to the 
people to decide in the last instance between the pres- 
ident and the legislative body, if they have otherwise 
been unable to come to an agreement. There was no 
similar provision in the Instrument of Government. 
If the new Parliament chose to refuse taxes, it could 
make all government impossible excepting according to 
its wishes, whilst the Protector and his council would 
be left to carry out a policy of which they disapproved. 
Such a fault in the constitution was not attributable to 
any mere defect in the wording of the Instrument. It 
grew out of the necessities of the situation. There was 
an honorable desire on the part of the framers of the 
Constitution that government should be carried on in 
accordance with the wishes of the representative of the 
people. There was an equally honorable desire to 
maintain the actual administration of government in 
the hands of men of proved capacity, and to save 
the great principle of toleration from the shipwreck to 
which it was inevitably destined if it was to depend upon 
the votes of a popular assembly. 

Those who were anxious to avert a collision between 
the Government and the future Parliament might hope 
that the character of the new Government 
would count for something. The ninemonths ?4- OlivtV's 
which intervened between Oliver's eleva- Government. 
tion to the protectorate and the meeting of Parliament 
were spent in intelligent and fruitful work. An end was 
put, on honorable terms, to the war with the Dutch, 
and England was once more at peace with the world. 
By a provision of the Instrument the Protector was em- 



1 76 Oliver' s Protectorate. 1 65 4. 

powered to issue ordinances valid till they had been 
examined by Parliament. In this way provision was 
made for those difficulties which had thrown an apple 
of discord into the midst of the Assembly of Nomi- 
nees. Chancery was reformed, and not abolished ; ar- 
rangements were made for securing an able and efficient 
clergy, without inquisition into opinion, so long, at least, 
as that opinion was Puritan, and without throwing the 
clergy for its support on the voluntary offerings of a pop- 
ulation too often steeped in ignorance and vice. 

If much was to be hoped for from the excellence of 
the Government, something, too, might be looked for 

from the constitution of Parliament itself, 
tution^or^' For the first time members sat in it for Scot- 
Parliament. Y2.x\^ ^^^ Ireland, and a redistribution of 
seats had made the House a fairer reflection of the 
wishes of the nation than it had been before. Such 
changes were likely to have but little influence on the 
special controversy of the day. The arrangement of 
immediate importance was the exclusion for twelve 
years, of all persons who had in any way assisted the 
king, that is to say, of the old Episcopalian royalists, 
and of the new Presbyterian royalists as well. It might 
be expected that a House elected on these terms would 
be willing to co-operate with the Protector. 

Parliament met on September 3, the day of Dunbar 
and Worcester. The Parliamentary instinct was strong 

in this assembly. It at once called in ques- 
gj^plriia- tion the Instrument of Government. It had 
mentary op- ^^ ^jgjj ^^ Overthrow the Protector. But it 

position. 

demanded that the terms of the constitution 

should be settled by itself, and that the Protector should act 

under limitations imposed upon his office by Parhament. 

It was no merely theoretical constitutional difference, 



1 65 5 • "^^^ Major- Generals. 177 

Oliver was good, and his government was good, but he 
owed his position to military force. If mil- g^ ^ ^^ 
Hary force was to settle affairs of govern- 1 7- Oliver's 

"^ " interference. 

ment rightly to-day, it might settle them 
wrongly to-morrow. England would for ever be at the 
mercy of those who held the sword. Cromwell, never- 
theless, had something to say for himself. If Parliament 
settled things rightly to-day, it too might settle them 
wrongly to-morrow. If it was to do as it pleased in 
matters of religion, toleration would, at least when the 
twelve years of exclusion were over, be abandoned 
by a large majority. Between these tv/o positions there 
was no middle term attainable then. The only possible 
solution lay in the frank acknowledgment that if the 
nation has thoroughly made up its mind to do wrong it 
cannot be prevented from doing so, and must be allowed 
to learn wisdom from experience. Such an acknow- 
ledgment was impossible for Oliver. He well knew that 
as a whole the nation cared nothing for toleration, noth- 
ing, perhaps, by this time, for Puritanism itself. He had 
force in his hands, and he believed that its possession 
was a token of Divine favor. Rather than see the 
country drift back into misery he resolved to employ 
force. Yet he tried hard to veil from himself and from 
others the significance of his act. Parliament, he argued, 
had been elected under the conditions of the Instru- 
ment. Those who refused to acknowledge by their sig- 
natures that they would be faithful to those conditions, 
and would never consent to alter the government as it 
was settled in a single person and in Parliament, had no 
business there. A hundred refused to sign the document 
presented to them, and to allow the Divine right of vic- 
tory any more than they were ready to allow the Divine 
right of hereditary kingship. 



178 Oliver s Protectorate. i^55« 

If the principal conditions of the Instrument were 
raised above debate, the minor conditions were still as- 
sailable. In spite of the exclusion of the 
Jan!' 2V hundred, the House again and again main- 

Ltion' ^°' tained its view that Parliament was the cen- 
tral point round which the constitution 
turned. Again and again it voted down some part or 
other of the authority which the Protector claimed. Ol- 
iver could bear it no longer. He was bound by the In- 
strument to allow Parliament to sit for five months. He 
interpreted the article to mean five lunar months, and 
when those came to an end, on January 22, he dissolved 
Parliament. 

Section II. — The Major- Generals. 

Toleration was maintained in France by the will of a 
Richelieu or a Mazarin, without taking root in the in- 
stincts of the nation. Something of the 
1 1 Toleration gajjie kind seemed likely to happen in Eng- 
land. For though the dissolved Parliament 
had not attacked the principle, every one knew that this 
was simply because it did not fully represent the nation. 
It was the assurance that some day or another Parlia- 
ment would speak the ideas which prevailed around 
which supplied one of the chief motives which made 
Cromwell shrink from entrusting the supreme power to 
a Parliament. 

Happily there was present to Englishmen the instinct 

or consciousness — call it what you will — that it was 

better for a nation to blunder on, making 

\ 2-f^esistance mistakes as it goes, than to have the 

to Oliver. ° ' 

most excellent arrangements forced upon 
it by external violence. Nor must it be forgotten 
that even Cromwell's toleration was but an imperfect 



1 6 5 5 • The Afajor- Generals, 179 

toleration after all. He never acknowledged that the 
old Church worship was anything more than a supersti- 
tion, to be contemptuously allowed permission here and 
there to gather itself into private houses and secret meet- 
ing-places without open check, but not to be permitted 
to step forward into the light of day. An ever-abiding 
sense of wrong stirred up the indignation of men who 
had looked back with regret to the Church observances 
which had been familiar to them in youth. Extempore 
prayer offers abundant facilities for the display of folly 
and profanity as well as of piety, and there were thou- 
sands who contrasted the tone and language of the new 
clergy v/ith the measured devotion of the Book of Com- 
mon Prayer, altogether to the advantage of the latter. 
Church and king, the old rehgious forms, and the old 
political institutions came to be inextricably fused to- 
gether in their minds, mingled with a vague and inarti- 
culate sense of wrong being done to England by the 
openly avowed attempt to drive her by force when argu- 
ment made no impression. There was a breadth of 
view and a keenness of vision in Oliver which had no 
parallel in Charles, and the principle of averting doc- 
trinal tyranny by liberty was as right as the principle of 
averting it by ceremonial uniformity was wrong. But 
the resolution to drive those who would not be guided 
was the same in both, and the result to which it led in 
Oliver's case v/as as disastrous as it had been in the case 
of Charles. 

At Salisbury the seething discontent actually burst into 
a flame. A gentleman named Penruddock, with a force 
of some two hundred followers, marched 

. . March ii. 

mto the city, and seized the judges who had ^3. Penmd- 
just come down for the assizes. It was ocksnsmg. 
madness in the face of the army, and the insurgents 



1 80 Oliver' s Protectorate. 1655. 

were soon seized and the movement suppressed. Oliver 
well knew that if the rising was nothing in itself it was a 
symptom of a dangerous hostility to his government, 
widely spread through the country. 

Oliver took instant measures of repression. He di- 
vided England into ten military districts. Over each 
, ,, . he set a Major-General with strict military 

§ 4. Major- -^ ^ 

Generals ap- powcrs for preserving order. The expenses 
were to be paid by the Royalists, whose dis- 
affection seemed to him to have made the arrangement 
necessary. Ten per cent, was levied upon their incomes, 
by the Protector's orders. Military rule was developing 
itself more clearly every day. Everywhere soldiers were 
at hand, enforcing obedience. Obstacles were placed in 
the way of social meetings, at which plans against the 
Government might be discussed. Yet if the power of 
the Protector rested upon force, it was not exercised in 
any violent way. No compulsion was used, beyond that 
which the exigencies of the case seemed to demand. 
Cruelty, and insult, usually more provoking than cruelty, 
were sedulously avoided. Leniency, wherever leniency 
was possible, was the rule of the Protector's action, and 
if there were many who were exasperated by the mode 
in which resistance was suppressed and by the trammels 
to which their daily life was subjected, there were others 
who recognized the good intentions of the Government, 
and were thankful to the Protector for the substantial 
justice which he tried to afford to all, when once the 
money which he exacted had been paid. The disposi- 
tion to resist a power based upon the possession of the 
sword was balanced by a disposition to submit to a 
power which used its authority on the whole so wisely 
and so well. 

In one direction Ohver departed from his policy of 



1 6 5 5 • The Major- Generals. 1 8 1 

toleration. He had made up his mind that the Common 
Prayer Book was the rallying point of disaf- 
fection. On November he issued orders to § s-. Episco- 
prohibit its use. He would deal with the shiiTsup-"^ 
worship of the English Church as the Eng- P'"essed. 
lish Church had dealt with the older forms of the Mass. 
It is true that the proclamation was not rigorously en- 
forced, and that zealous congregations continued to 
meet in private. "I went to London," wrote Evelyn, a 
country gentleman of studious and literary tastes, "to 
receive the blessed Sacrament, the first time the Church 
of England was reduced to a chamber and conventicle, 
so sharp was the persecution." A few weeks later he 
notes that " there was now nothing practical preached 
or that pressed reformation of life, but high and specu- 
lative points and strains that few understood which left 
people very ignorant and of no steady principles, the 
source of all our sects and divisions, for there was much 
envy and ancharity in the world ; God of His mercy 
amend it ! " The pure doctrine of toleration gave way 
to the doctrine that religious opinions were to be tolera- 
ted just so far as they respected the authority of the 
State. Men who, springing from the various sects into 
which the force of Puritanism was splitting up, questioned 
in any way the authority of the State, were silenced or 
imprisoned. 

The principles which prevailed in Oliver's domestic 
government gave the tone to his foreign policy. In the 
great contest which was going on between 
France and Spain, he saw a quarrel between ? 6 Quarrel 

^ ' T- _ _ with Spain. 

a tolerant and intolerant nation. With 
Spain he had a quarrel of his own. Her claim to exclude 
English trade and colonization from America was as 
strongly maintained as ever. When Cromwell asked 



1 82 Oliver' s Protectorate. 1655. 

for freedom of trade in the Spanish colonies, and for the 
exemption of Enghsh merchants and sailors from the 
jurisdiction of the Inquisition, the Spanish ambassador 
flatly rejected his demand. " It is to ask," he said, " for 
my master's two eyes." Oliver fired up into indignation. 
Already he had sent out Penn and Venables to the West 
Indies to seize San Domingo in reprisal for the seizure 
by Spain of English islands in the West Indies, and had 
sent Blake, the great sea-captain, into the Mediterranean 
to demand reparation from the Algiers and Tunis pirates 
who had been preying upon the Enghsh commerce. He 
now offered to make alliance with France. 

The treaty with France received a sudden check. 
News reached England that the Duke of 
massacre in Savoy had bccn persecuting his Vaudois 
Piedmont. subjects, whose Protestantism reached back 

to an earlier date than the reformation. Troops had 
been sent into the valleys where they lived, those who 
escaped from the sword were conveyed away as prisoners, 
or were driven into the snow-clad mountains to perish 
miserably of cold and hunger. 

Milton's prayer rose to heaven : — 

Avenge, O Lord, Thy slaughtered saints, whose bones 
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold ; 
Even them who kept Thy truth so pure of old, 
When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones. 
Forget not: in Thy book record their groans, 
Who were Thy sheep, and in their ancient fold, 
Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled 
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans 
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they 
To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow 
O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway 
The triple tyrant, that from these may grow 
A hundredfold, who, having learnt Thy way. 
Early may fly the Babylonian woe. 



1656. Olive J-' s Secojid Parliament. 183 

Milton's prayer remained unanswered. The saints 
remained unavenged. Italy remained unconverted. But 
Cromwell took good care that the barbarity should not 
be repeated. France was plainly told that if he wished 
for the English alliance this persecution must stop. The 
King of France put a pressure on the Duke of Savoy, 
and liberty of worship was conceded to the Vaudois. 

The war with Spain which was the immediate conse- 
quence, was conducted with singular courage and ability. 
If Penn and Venables failed at San Domingo, 
they secured Jamaica. Blake dashed into l^-^^' 

■' _ -' _ with Spain. 

Tunis harbor and burned the pirate vessels 
in spite of the protection of the forts. On his return he 
was ordered to sail about the coast of Spain, to pounce, 
if possible, upon the fleet which brought home to Europe 
the yearly produce of the American silver mines, and to 
do what mischief he could. For some time the results 
were not apparent ; but Blake held his own at sea, and 
the Spanish fleet dared not come out to meet him. 

Section III. — Oliver s Second Parliament. 

War is expensive, and though Oliver had hitherto 
levied taxes by his own unsupported authority, a deficit 
of /8oo,ooo made him anxious to obtain 

'^ A. D. 1656, 

Parliamentary assent to the fresh burden Sep. 17. 
which it would be necessary to lay upon the new Pariia- 
nation. Though he could dispense with "^^"*- 
Parliaments as readily as Charles, he had not Charles' 
indifference to the weakness caused by the want of 
Parliamentary support. He knew how hard the work 
was which he had been set to do, and knowing as he did 
that he could not save the nation, — only help the nation 
to save itself, — he turned wistfully, half wearily, in hia 
thoughts, to that great representative body whose co- 



1 8 4 Oliver' s Protectorate. 1656. 

operation he desired. Once more he summoned a 
Parliament. 

On September 17, 1656, he opened the session with 
a speech, in which he laid bare his thoughts about Eng- 
land, He defended the war against Spain, 
§ 2. Oliver's defended too his promptness of action in sup- 

opening speech. r r r 

pressing domestic broils. But it was when 
he came to speak of his principles of action that his 
heart was revealed. "Our practice," he said, "since 
the last Parliament hath been, to let all this nation see 
that whatever pretensions to religion would continue 
quiet, peaceable, they should enjoy conscience and 
liberty to themselves ; and not to make religion a pre- 
tence for arms and blood." After all that had passed, 
it was impossible for Oliver to look with equal eyes upon 
the whole range of Christian life and thought. To him 
the " Cavalier interest " was but " the badge and charac- 
ter of countenancing profaneness, disorder or wicked- 
ness in all places, and whatever is most of kin to these 
and what is Popery, and with the profane nobility of this 
nation." The old attacks upon Puritanism were bitterly 
remembered — " In my conscience it was a shame to be 
a Christian, within these fifteen, sixteen, or seventeen 
years, in this nation. It was a shame, it was a reproach 
to a man; and the badge of Puritan was put upon it." 
Then followed words of warning — " Make it a shame to 
see men bold in sin and profaneness, and God will bless 
you. You will be a blessing to the nation ; and by this 
will be more repairs of breaches than by anything in the 
world. Truly these things do respect the souls of men, 
and the spirits, — which are the men. The mind is the 
man ! If that be kept pure, a man signifies somewhat ; 
if not, I would fain see what dift'erence there is betwixt 
him and a beast. He hath only some activity to do 



1656. Oliver s Second Parliament. 185 

some more mischief." The whole spirit of Puritanism 
lay in these words. Milton's " Comus " was there 
translated into action. The weakness of Puritanism was 
doubtless there too, its incapacity to conceive that men 
of another stamp might grow in spiritual life in quite 
another way, and its consequent failure to appreciate the 
motives by which large numbers of Englishmen had been 
trained to virtue by the influence of habitual devotion in 
its ceremonial form. 

It was not to such that Oliver spoke. They were ex- 
cluded from his Parliament, and others were excluded 
too. About a hundred, one-fourth of the 
assembly, were refused admittance. It was ^f^jJ^^ieJ"" 
not to know the nation's mind that Oliver 
had called this Parliament but to find amongst the nation 
those who would support him in carrying out his ideal of 
government. 

Oliver's second Parliament thus purified was more 
disposed to support him than his first had 
been. Before long, news came which must | ^paSfl^eef. 
have gone far to strengthen his authority. 
Stayner, with part of Blake's fleet, had fallen in with the 
Spanish treasure ships and had captured the costly prize. 
Before long, thirty-eight wagons laden with Spanish 
silver rolled through the streets of London to the Tower. 

The relations between Protector and Parliament were 
smooth enough. Money was voted, and Oliver in return 
withdrew the Major-Generals. Then came 
a plot, by no means the first, for the murder jan.' ^ 
of the Protector, the detection of which feJ^s^Se. 
roused the Parliament to a sense of the in- 
security of the government, all resting on the single life 
of Oliver. The Protector, on his part, had reasons for 
desiring a change. Parliament had been doing things 
o 



1 86 Oliver^ s Protectorate. 1657. 

which renewed his old dread of the despotism of a single 
House. One James Nayler, a mad or half-mad fanatic, 
had allowed himself to be worshipped at Bristol and in 
the West of England. Parliament took up the case, 
ordered him to be whipped, branded, bored through the 
tongue, and so forth. Oliver interfered with protest. 
But his legal power was slight, and he was likely to 
welcome any change which would stop a representative 
assembly from assuming the functions of a judge. 

After long debate, an amended constitution was voted 

by Parliament. It is not strange if the remedy for the 

_, _ . various evils which were dreaded was sought 

§6. ThePeti- . , „ ^ , , , ^^ 

tion and m some rctum to the Imes of the old Con- 

^^^^' stitution. There was to be a second House 

to revise the decisionsof that which would be once more 
the House of Commons. The Council of State went into 
the old subordinate position of the Privy Council, and 
though the exclusion of the Royalists was maintained, 
the power of excluding from either House members who 
had been duly elected was taken from the Protector. 
Oliver had the right of naming his own successor, and a 
fixed and permanent sum was granted to him for the 
maintenance of the army and navy. Toleration for all 
peaceable Christians was incorporated with the Constitu- 
tion, but from this toleration Episcopalians and Roman 
Catholics were excluded. 

Thus far the acknowledged difficulties of the political 
situation had led to a drawing back towards the old con- 
stitutional forms. A new House of Lords 
fuses the would scrve as a check upon the despotic 

titeo ing. tendencies of the House of Commons. The 
Petition and Advice went further still. It revived the 
kingly office and offered the title to Oliver. After some 
consideration he declined the title, whilst he accepted 



1 6 5 7 • Oliver' s Second Parliament. 187 

the remainder of the Petition and Advice. On June 26 
Oliver was installed more solemnly than before as Pro- 
tector, and the session came to an end. 

The resistance of the army and of the old enemies of 
Charles' kingship had doubtless the very greatest weight 
in Oliver's determination to refuse the kingly 
title. But at the bottom there would have oftherefuSl. 
been an incongruity in his assumption of 
the time-honored name which could not fail to act as a 
deterrent. A king owed his authority to ancient tradi- 
tion, handed down from former generations. Oliver 
owed his authority to his personal qualities, qualities in 
which his successor would undoubtedly be far behind 
him. To call him a king was to make him ridiculous by 
bringing into men's minds a set of ideas quite different 
from those which would naturally apply to his real 
position. 

If this was true of Oliver's kingship, was not it also 
true of the new Lords ? When Parliament met again on 
January 20, the composition of the House 
was changed in two ways. Oliver's chiefs ian. 20. 
supporters had been removed to the House mtion of" 
of Lords, and the excluded members were, P-irhament. 
by the terms of the constitution, re-admitted. The re- 
sult was a House which called in question all that had 
been done in the preceding session. Throwing them- 
selves upon their position as elected representatives of 
the nation, they claimed to speak in its name. They 
rejected the new House of Lords. If they were left alone 
it would not be long before they rejected the Protector as 
well On February 4, after a speech of mingled sad- 
ness and indignation, Oliver dissolved his second Parli- 
ament, as he had dissolved his first. " The Lord," he 
said, " judge between me and you." 



1 88 Oliver' s Protectorate. 1658. 

Section IV. — Death of Oliver. 

As FAR as the present moment was concerned Oliver 

was doubtless in the right. The pretensions of the Lower 

House to speak in the name of the English 

2 1. Oliver's . . • t , , 

system nation were quite as ridiculous as the pre- 

doomed. tensions of the Upper House to drape itself 

in the robes of the House of Lords. But in the long run 
the deficiency in the representative character of all 
merely Puritan Parliaments would be the ruin of all that 
either party was striving to establish. On one occasion 
Oliver had compared himself to a constable set to keep 
order. Higher than that he could not rise. There is 
something mournful in his last appeal. " I can say in 
the presence of God, in comparison with whom we are 
but like poor creeping ants upon the earth, I would have 
been glad to have lived under any woodside, to have 
kept a flock of sheep, rather than undertaken such a gov- 
ernment as this." Very noble was the ideal which he 
set before them. To maintain right and justice, to take 
care that the people of God, as he termed them, were 
not oppressed, to maintain, with any limitations, religi- 
ous liberty, was a high work. But the nation, as a na- 
tion, wanted other things than these. It wanted, as Oli- 
ver would have said, to go back to the fleshpots of 
Egypt. The Puritan rule was too strict, too little regard- 
ful of human weaknesses, too firmly persuaded that 
there was no truth and no godliness outside its own con- 
ceptions, to impose itself by force for ever upon a great 
nation. It is quite true that the highest Puritan minds 
were not morose, or disregard ful of the lighter charms of 
hfe. But there was a seriousness in them which deep- 
ened in lesser men into congenial sourness. Men missed 



1658. Death of Oliver. 189 

the cakes and ale, the dance round the maypole, the 
open theatre, and all the various modes of enjoyment 
which they had loved well if not always wisely. They 
turned savagely upon the hypocrisy which waits like a 
dark shadow upon religious fervor, and upon the 
frequent use of cant phrases as a substitute for the de- 
votion of the heart. Ohver's Parliaments, Oliver him- 
self, had struck no root into the national mind. His 
House of Lords, his House of Commons, were but a 
mockery. If he was himself no mockery it was because 
his feet were firmly planted elsewhere than on the na- 
tion. His strength lay in the army, and the army was 
a grim reality. 

His last days were days of external victory and glory. 
In 1657 six thousand EngUsh troops had taken part with 
France in her war against Spain. In 1658 
they had shared in the victory of the Dunes, |f%if/°J^r 
and had called forth the warmest admiration 
of the French generals by their discipline and prowess. 
Dunkirk was captured and surrendered to Oliver as the 
price of his assistance. But at home the Protector had 
difficulties enough. Many of his old companions looked 
sourly upon him. There were plots to murder him, plots 
to bring back the king, plots to establish a common- 
wealth. Ohver kept them all down with a tight hand. In 
the summer there was talk again of another Parliament. 
Doubtless it would but have ended in the same way as 
the former ones. No assembly would ever be brought 
to acknowledge that the power of the sword might fairly 
be thrown into the balance of its deliberations. No cir- 
cumstances would bring the Protector to acknowledge 
that an assembly could wisely be entrusted with irrespon- 
sible government. 

Oliver was spared the years of weariness which seemed 



190 Oliver' s Protectorate. 1658. 

to lie before him. His work, full of instruction as it was 
for the generations to come, had been ac- 
l 3. Oliver's complished as far as that generation was 
SIC ness. concerned. On August 6 he lost his favor- 

ite daughter. Though he was but fifty-nine, his health, 
worn by long care and anxiety, was beginning to fail. 
On the 2ist a change for the worse took place. There 
were men in England who knew what his value was. 
" Prayers abundantly and incessantly poured forth on his 
behalf, both publicly and privately, as was observed, in 
a more than ordinary way." It was all in vain. For days 
he lay on his bed of sickness, pouring out his soul to 
God. There were times when old doubts stole over his 
mind. "It is a fearful thing," he repeated again and 
again, " to fall into the hands of the living God." Then 
the clouds would pass away in the hght of self-forget- 
fulness. " All the promises of God are in Him, yea, and 
in Him, Amen, to the glory of God by us, by us in 
Jesus Christ." " The Lord hath filled me with as much 
assurance of His pardon and His love as my soul can 
hold. I think I am the poorest wretch that lives ; but I 
love God ; or rather am beloved of God. I am a con- 
queror, and more than a conqueror, through Christ that 
strengtheneth me." 

On August 30 a mighty storm swept over England. 
The devil, said the cavaliers, was fetching home the soul 
of the tyrant. Oliver little recked of their 
1 4. Oliver's sayings now. The winds howled around, 
death. j^.g voice found utterance in one last prayer 

of faith : " Lord," he cried, " though I am a miserable 
and wretched creature, I am in covenant with Thee 
through grace. And I may, I will come to Thee, for Thy 
people. Thou hast made me, though very unworthy, a 
mean instrum.ent to do them some good, and Thee ser- 



1658. Death of Oliver. 191 

vice ; and many of them have set a high value upon me, 
though others wish and would be glad of my death. 
Lord, however Thou do dispose of me, continue and 
go on to do good to them. Give them consistency of 
judgment, one heart, and mutual love; and go on to 
deliver them, and with the work of reformation ; and 
make the name of Christ glorious in the world. Teach 
those who look too much on Thy instruments, to de- 
pend more upon Thyself. Pardon such as desire to 
trample upon the dust of a poor worm, for they are Thy 
people too. And pardon the folly of this short prayer : 
even for Jesus Christ's sake. And give us a good night, 
if it be Thy pleasure. Amen." For three more days 
Oliver lingered on. September 3 came— the day of Dun- 
bar and Worcester. In the afternoon the brave spirit 
passed away to the rest which it had never known upon 
earth. 



CHAPTER X. 

END OF THE REVOLUTION. 

Section I. — Anarchy. 

With Oliver's death the Puritan Revolution had ful- 
filled its appointed destiny. Starting from a 
double origin — the political desire to make ^h^^^'^^T 

<^ r ot the past. 

the will of the nation paramount over the will 
of the Court, and the religious desire to keep Protestant- 
ism pure from the Laudian innovations — the Long Par- 
liament had been completely successful in overpowering 
the king. But the existence of differences of religious 



192 End of the Revolution . 1658. 

opinion in the ranks of the Long Parhament itself and in 
its most attached followers gave rise to new difficulties. 
If things had been left to take their natural course 
nothing would have been heard of toleration for many 
a long year. The fact that those who wielded the sword 
stood in need of toleration compelled the nation to listen 
to their claims. The permission for the free development 
of diversity of religious opinion was extorted by force 
and not conceded to reason. It would be in the highest 
degree unjust to compare Cromwell with Richelieu. The 
great Protector never sat down in calm satisfaction that 
the nation was as clay in the hands of a potter. He 
yearned for co-operation, for life in all its forms, religious 
and political. The early history of the English people 
had not been wasted upon him. He was of the race 
which had looked up to Simon de Montfort and Edward 
I., not of the race which had looked up to Charles V. and 
Lewis XII. For all that he was aiming at the impossi- 
ble. He had placed his standard too high for those who 
lived with him to follow. The day would come when the 
nation would appreciate his greatness. For the time it 
resolutely refused to be transformed after his ideal. 

Oliver's Protectorate had been founded on the sym- 
pathies of the army, and of the lawyers and statesmen, 
who saw nothing but tyranny and confusion 
?2^ Rfch- i^ ^^ predominance of a single House of 

ard's Pro- Parliament. The lawyers and statesmen 

tectorate. -r-, . , i j i 

gathered around his son Richard, named by 
OUver on his deathbed as his successor. On Jan. 27, 
1659, a new Parliament met round the new Protector. 

Richard, peaceable and sluggish, was the very man to 
be moulded to the wishes of the lawyers and the states- 
men. But the army knew him not. His father had led 
them in peace and war, had watched with them under 



1659- Anarchy. 193 

the heights of Dunbar, had triumphed with them within 
the walls of Worcester. Their dissatisfac- 

A.D. 1659. 

tion was directed not agamst the Protecto- April 22. 
rate system or the Parliamentary system, but ^^nj dls- ^' 
against the authority of the civil power, ^jj^'^jfj^^ 
They demanded a control over the appoint- 
ment of officers, and to choose Fleetwood, Oliver's son- 
in-law, as their general. Parliament of course upheld 
the authority of the civil power over the army. On April 
22 the soldiers dissolved the Parliament and abolished 
the Protectorate. Richard Cromwell made no resistance, 
and his father's whole political system was scattered to 
the winds. 

The soldiers did not venture to govern England in 
their own name. A few of those members of the House 
of Commons who had sat to the end of the 
Long Parliament when it was expelled in g 4. The 
1653 were still to be found in London. The j^°^t again. 
poor remains of a once powerful assembly — • 
the Rump, as men called them in derision — took their 
seats once more under the protection of the army. They 
were but forty-two in number. Lenthall was replaced 
in the chair. No legitimist king ever showed himself 
more tenacious of his rights than they. They took a 
high tone with the officers, told them " that the Parlia- 
ment expected faithfulness and obedience to the Parlia- 
ment and Commonwealth," spoke of all acts done under 
Oliver's orders as legally invalid, and expressed a reso- 
lution to hold all persons who had collected taxes for the 
Protector as responsible for their payment afresh. The 
officers were naturally indignant. *' I know not," said 
Lambert, "why they should not be at our mercy as well 
as we at theirs." 

The inevitable conflict was postponed for a time by a 



194 End of the Revolution. '659. 

Royalist insurrection. The army had not yet lost its 
vigor. The rebellion was beaten down by Lambert at 
Winnington Bridge. The officers came back with high 
demands, which the Parliament refused to 
stored Par- grant. As the members arrived at West- 
pJr^T'^''' minster, on October 13, they found the ap- 
proaches guarded by troops, who refused 
them admission to the House. " Do you not know me ?" 
said Lenthall. " If you had been with us at Winnington 
Bridge," was the answer, " we should have known you." 
The rough words painted the situation. It was no 
longer the army demanding political power because it 
was wiser and more thoughtful than other 
msoi^c?'^ classes. It was the contempt of the military 
element for the civilian. Fortunately for the 
world no army, however excellently trained and dis- 
ciplined, can maintain itself at the head of a nation on 
such terms as these. Armies are composed of men after 
all, and they will not cling together unless there be some 
mind to direct them, or some common object to pursue. 
Without Oliver even that army was bound together but by 
a rope of sand. All that it had to ask was that it should 
not be subject to any civil authority. Even in its own 
ranks there were found those who shrunk from defying 
their countrymen on such ground. The garrison of 
Portsmouth declared against the officers in London. In 
London itself the soldiers discovered that they had been 
less regularly paid since their officers had taken the 
government into their own hands. On Dec. 24 they 
once more drew Lenthall from his retirement. On the 
26th the Rump was brought back for a second restora- 
tion of power, and resumed its sittings at Westminster as 
if nothing had happened to ruffle its serenity. 



i66o. The Restoration. 195 

Section II. — The Restoration. 
Men who had hitherto shown httle inchnation to favor 
the Royal cause were growing sick of being subject to 
the caprices of a domineering soldiery. Nor 
was this feeling unknown in the ranks of I ^-J^^f^^ 

^ in Scotland. 

the army itself. George Monk, who com- 
manded the English forces in Scotland, was a cool, taci- 
turn man, without passion or enthusiasm. He had served 
the king in the early part of the civil war, and had then 
passed over to the side of the Parliament. Blind to the 
higher side of Oliver's nature, he had served him faith- 
fully in his effort to maintain order, and he knew, as 
neither Lambert nor Fleetwood seemed to know, that the 
government of a great kingdom cannot be carried on as 
a mere appendage to the military duties of a commander- 
in-chief. As long as Richard Cromwell retained his au- 
thority, Monk seconded him loyally. " Richard Crom- 
well," he afterwards said, " forsook himself, else had I 
never failed my promise to his father or regard to his 
memory." 

As soon as Monk heard that the officers had dissolved 
Richard's government he prepared for action. Gather- 
ing a Convention of the Scottish Estates, he 
obtained from them a vote of money. On f^^'^^°' 
New Year's Day, 1660, he crossed the Bor- march into 

1 IT--/- Ensjland. 

der. On Jan. 11 he was met by Fairfax at 
York, who brought with him all the weight of his unstained 
name and his high military reputation. In the negotia- 
tions which followed Monk showed a great dislike of any 
change which would threaten the material and spir- 
itual interests which had grown up since the beginning 
of the civil war. He objected to the return to Parlia- 
ment of the Presbyterian members excluded by Pride's 



196 End of the Revolution. 1660. 

Purge, and to the return of the king, as both would be 
animated by hostility to those who had risen under the 
existing order of things. 

On Feb. 3 Monk entered London. Whatever he 
might think about the king's return, he had no enthu- 
siasm in his composition. He was not the 
m^London man to take an active part against a possi- 

ble government, and he refused to take an 
oath of abjuration of the House of Stuart. He wished first, 
he said, to know the grounds on which it was tendered to 
him. Matters were soon brought to a crisis by a resolution 
taken on Feb. 8 by the City of London. They declared 
that, as no members for the City were amongst the forty- 
two who were governing England by so strange a title, 
they would pay no taxes. Taxation must follow repre- 
sentation. Monk was ordered to suppress the resistance. 
Marching into the City, he enforced his will for a mo- 
ment upon the citizens. But the sight of London spurn- 
ing the yoke of the Rump convinced him, if he was not 
convinced before, that, whatever else happened, the 
Rump could not continue to give laws to England. 

Monk had entered the City on the loth. In the eve- 
ning he called a council of his officers, and obtained 
their approbation to a letter which he had 

? 4. Declares . ^^ , ^^ . ■, • •, i j j , 

for a free written to the House, m which he demanded 

Parliament. ^^ j^^^^ ^^ ^^^.^^ ^^ ^jj ^p ^^^ Vacant SCatS 

within eight days, and a dissolution by May 6. Next 
morning the news was received with enthusiasm in the 
City. That night every street was ablaze with bonfires. 
That there might be no mistake about the meaning of 
the display, rumps were roasted over the fires and car- 
ried about the streets in derision. 

The writs for fresh elections were not issued. Ano- 
ther way of coercing the Rump was found. On Febru- 



1 6 6o . The Restoration. 1 9 7 

ary 26 the excluded Presbyterian members 

took their seats. The majority passed at ^s^^End'of 

once to their side. A dissolution, to be fol- fe!r.°,^!nt 

lowed by new elections, was voted without 

further difficulty. On March 16 the Long Parliament 

came by its own act to its unhonored end. 

The Restoration was now a foregone conclusion. The 
one predominant feehng of Enghshmen was to escape 
from the rule of the soldiers ; and every 
recently-introduced form of civil govern- Rest^atlon 
ment having been alike discredited, it was "^'=^^^^^- 
natural to turn back to that form under which the nation 
had flourished for centuries, and which had fallen rather 
from the personal faults of the last king than from the 
inherent vices of the system. 

The Declaration of Breda converted the chances of 
the Restoration into a certainty. In this celebrated ad- 
dress Charles offered a general pardon to 
all who were not specially excepted by Par- f^^Thtoe- 
liament. The material interests which had ^laration of 

lireda. 

grown up during the Revolution were placed 
in safety by a clause assuring the retention of confiscated 
estates by their actual holders. Spiritual interests were 
not forgotten. The Cromwellian doctrine that no man 
should be called in question for differences of opinion so 
long as he did not disturb the peace of the kingdom was 
embodied in the manifesto of a Restoration. 

On April 14 the new Parliament met. It had been 
freely chosen without regard for the old Royalist dis- 
qualifications, which the Rump, by its last 
act, had attempted to maintain. The king {oration, 
was at once recalled. On May 25 Charles 
landed at Dover, amidst applauding crowds. - On the 
29th, the day of his birth, he entered London. The sol- 



198 End of the RezwlutioJi. 1660. 

diers of the Parliamentary army were drawn up on 
Blackheath to receive him. With their leaders divided 
their power was gone, and they submitted to be dis- 
banded and to leave the care of the commonwealth to 
others. 

Section HI. — The Ecclesiastical Settleinent of the 
Restoration. 

The Government, as established by the Restoration, at- 
tempted to give effect to the poHtical principles adopted 
in 1641. In recalhng Charles Parliament 
and the Par- had rcsolved that the government of Eng- 
lamen . land consisted of King, Lords and Com- 

mons- Not one of these constituent parts was to act in 
total independence of the other. The objections raised 
by Oliver against an irresponsible House of Commons 
were admitted as valid by the statesmen of the Res- 
toration. 

Oliver's principle of religious toleration fared worse. 
Enshrined in the Declaration of Breda, it had no place 
as yet in the hearts of the English people. 
gious tole-^' In their minds it was connected with the 
ration. domination of the army and with the rude 

harangues of uneducated and fanatical preachers. The 
Bishops were re-established, and the Common Prayer- 
book was brought back with general satisfaction. Pen- 
alties the most severe were placed upon those who ven- 
tured to use any other form of worship. If the king did 
not throw himself heart and soul into the repression as 
his father had done, he offered no resistance. Never had 
the cause of religious liberty seemed more hopeless. 
Laud and Charles I. might be resisted. But who should 
resist a persecuting nation ? 

In this apparent hopelessness lay the brightest hopes 



1660-5. The Ecclesiastical Settlement. 199 

for the future. The Laudian system had been main- 
tained by the authority of the few over the 
many. The Puritan system had been main- for the 
tained by the armed strength of the few ^"^"^^* 
over the many. The rule of a minority must ever be 
watchful, ever on its guard against hidden dangers, ever 
keeping the hand upon the bridle. The rule of the 
many brings with it a feeling of security. 

For a few years after the Restoration the dread of a 
possible rising of Oliver's old soldiers was too keen to 
make it likely that the reins would soon be 1660-5. 
loosely held. The Cavalier Parliament— ^ 4-. Acts 

T -!-> !• against tho 

the Long Parliament of the Restoration, as it Nonconfor- 
is sometimes called — passed act after act "^'^'^* 
against those Puritans who refused to conform to the 
Established Church. On August 24, 1662, the Noncon- 
formist clergy were expelled from their livings. In 1664 
the Conventicle Act visited with fine, imprisonment, or 
transportation, all persons meeting together for religious 
purposes without public authority. In 1665 the Five 
Mile Act forbade the ejected ministers to live within five 
miles of any corporate town, or to keep schools where 
the young might be bred up in their principles. 

One notable change in language testifies to the feeling 
raised by the irresistible power of a Parliamentary per- 
secution. The names of Puritan and Non- ^ ^ Noncon- 
conformist begin to drop out of sight. The <ormists and 

._. , . ° Dissenters. 

name of Dissenter begins to be heard. The 
Nonconformist in the reign of Charles I. claimed to 
take his place within the Church system, and to modify 
it as far as he was able. The Dissenter of the reign of 
Charles II. was contented to stand outside it, to leave 
the Church of the nation to go on its own way, whilst 
pleading for toleration for the minority which differed 



200 End of the Revolution. 1661. 

from the dominant religion. No doubt some time would 
elapse before this change of position was generally un- 
derstood ; but there could be little doubt that, when once 
it was understood, the way to toleration would become 
comparatively smooth. Men who would hesitate to yield 
to their opponents a vantage ground from which to work 
a change in the religion of the country, would not be 
likely to be very stubborn in refusing to the Dissenters 
rights which would not in any way affect their own Church. 
Many years, however, must elapse before the change 
in the ecclesiastical position of the Dissenters could be 
felt or understood. At present the estrange- 

A.D. 1661. T , 1 ,-1 

1 6. The ment caused by the memory of the wrongs 

Corporation ^^^^ ^^^ suffered in the religious quarrel 
was embittered by a political difference. 
The governing classes of the nation had rallied to the 
doctrine of non-resistance ; that is to say, to the doctrine 
that under no conceivable circumstances was forcible 
resistance to the king permissible. The resolution of 
Parliament to maintain this doctrine had found expres- 
sion in the Corporation Act, passed in 1661, before the 
ecclesiastical measures of repression had come into ex- 
istence. By that Act, all bearers of office in corporate 
towris were compelled to take " the Sacrament of the 
Lord's Supper according to the rites of the Church of 
England," to renounce the Covenant, and that "traitor- 
ous position of the legality of taking arms by the king's 
authority against himself or his officers." 

If Parliament had been content to ask the Dissenters 

to promise to abstain from taking arms against the 

Crown, it is probable that few would have 

1 7. The refused compliance. It would have seemed 

doctrine of ^ . 

iion-resist- hardly worth while to forsake the position of 
loyal subjects, when the chances of success- 



1667. The Ecclesiastical Scttlotient. 201 

ful resistance had become so extremely slight, and when 
past resistance had led to consequences so distasteful to 
most of those from whom it had proceeded. But those 
who still cherished the memories of Marston Moor and 
Naseby could but, as honest men, give an unqualified 
contradiction to the doctrine that any human person was 
placed entirely above the control of his fellow-men. 
Those who refused to make the required declaration 
handed down to following generations the great princi- 
ple that no position is so exalted as to render him who 
occupies it entirely irresponsible. But in the midst of 
the exuberant loyalty around them they became for the 
time outcasts from the common life of the nation. 

The reaction against Puritanism showed itself in other 
ways than in the invention of new political and ecclesias- 
tical watchwords. Licentiousness came into 
fashion. In Charles II. Comus seemed to ^^;}^^^^^, 
have seated himself upon the throne of Eng- disc Lost." 
land. The poet of Comus, old and blind, 
poured forth the great epic of Puritanism, " Paradise 
Lost," in which the interest is concentrated not, as in 
the Iliad, upon warring armies ; or, as in the Odyssey, 
upon the fortunes and achievements of a hero ; or, as in 
the ^neid, on the foundation of an empire ; but on the 
war waged by heavenly and infernal powers for the 
maintenance or destruction of the purity of a single hu- 
man soul. Once more he, who in his youth had declared 
that outward beauty was but the expression of internal 
purity, stepped forward to develop at yet greater length 
his high theme, and to adjure men by the example of 
their first ancestor to guard the fortress of their purity 
against the assaults of temptation. 

Equally distinctive with the Puritanism of " Paradise 
Lost" is the Puritanism of " Paradise Regained." The 
P 



20 2 End of the Revolution. 1 6 7 1 . 

instinct of Christendom has fixed upon the Saviour's 
death upon the cross as the central point of 
3^ "'"Sra- ^^ work of redemption. There have been 
disc Re- those who have dwelt upon the physical 

suffering, upon the crown of thorns, the 
lacerated body. There have been those who have dwelt 
upon the sacrifice of the will and heart which lay be- 
neath the sacrifice of the body. Milton turns aside from 
the cross to tell of the resistance to temptation in the 
wilderness, to the original defiance to the seductive al- 
lurements of evil which found its weak and imperfect 
copy in that moment of conversion which was the corner- 
stone of the Puritan framework of Christian life for err- 
ing, fallible men. In " Paradise Lost," when Michael 
prepares to conduct Adam away from the Eden he has 
forfeited, he tells him that the true Paradise lies within. 
"Only add," he says — 

" Deeds to thy knowledge answerable; add faith; 
Add virtue, patience, temperance; add love. 
By name to come called charity, the soul 
Of all the rest: then wilt thou not be loth 
To leave this Paradise, "but shalt possess 
A Paradise within thee, happier far." 

The same thought appears at the close of "Paradise 
Regained." " Now," sing the angels over Him who had 
been victor over temptation — 

'' Now, thou hast avenged 
Supplanted Adam, and by vanquishing 
Temptation hast regained lost Paradise." 

Here too victory over sin is but the beginning of active 
work. To the true Puritan, conversion was the gate 
through v/hich the Christian life was entered. The song 



1667. The Ecclesiastical Settlement. 203 

of the angels in "Paradise Regained" is true to this 
part of the Puritan ideal in its closing strains : — 

" Hail, Son of the Most High, Heir of both Worlds, 
Queller of Satan ! On thy glorious work 
Now enter, and begin to save Mankind." 

How far away is all this from the ideal of the other great 
Christian poet, the interpreter of the thought and aspi- 
rations of the Middle Ages, To Dante, weary through 
the weakness of the flesh in the contemplation of the 
justice of God, the complete submission of the will and 
heart seems to be the final close of a life of bitter expe- 
rience and imperfect striving after good. Admitted in 
the end to look upon the mysteries of the Godhead, his 
vision fails and his tongue falters, till, as he tells us, 
" the Love which moves the sun and the stars turned my 
desire and my will as a wheel which moves concor- 
dantly " with that of the Divine Sustainer of the world. 
So ends the great mediaeval poem. To the Catholic 
Dante the complete submission of the individual human 
will to the Divine will is the final end and complete 
consummation of the Christian life, beyond which no 
work is conceivable as proceeding from the individual 
man. To the Puritan Milton the submission of the indi- 
vidual human will to the Divine will was the beginning 
of the work. 

The special opinions of the Puritans and the special 
ecclesiastical forms in which those opinions found ex- 
pression might sink out of sight, or might ^^ ^^^^ 
become the cherished treasures of a faithful future of 

^,, ../--r^- • 11. Puritanism. 

few. But the spirit of Puritanism would not 
die. The seriousness of mind which draws its motive 
of action from its own high conception of duty, and 
which issues in untiring activity for the public good, has 



204 End of the Revolution. 1671. 

never ceased to be an element of the national character, 
alongside with the love of routine and of the formal 
observances of life, the respect for law and precedent in 
Church and State, and the submission of personal and 
party aims to the expressed will of the community. 

Milton died in confidence that the future would do 
him justice. In " Samson Agonistes " he flung his defi- 
ance in the face of the triumphant powers of 

A. D. 167I. ., _ , . 

I II. " Samson evil. For himself there was no more hope. 
gomstes. Formality in the Church, riot in the Court, 
left no room for him. In the blind captive Samson he 
saw his own lot embodied. He was certainly thinking 
of himself when he penned such lines as these : — 
"This day a solemn feast the people hold, 
To Dagon, their sea-idol, and forbid 
Laborious works. Unwillingly this rest 
Their superstition leaves me ; hence, with leave 
Retiring from the popular noise, I seek 
This unfrequented place to find some ease — 
Ease to the body some, none to the mind 
From restless thoughts, that, like a deadly swarm 
Of hornets armed, no sooner found alone 
But rush upon me thronging, and present 
Times past, what once I was, and what am now." 
If he was despondent about himself, for England he 
did not " bate a jot of heart or hope." " All," sings the 
final chorus of the "Samson Agonistes" — 
"All is best, though we oft doubt 
What the unsearchable dispose 
Of Highest Wisdom brings about 
And ever best found in the close. 

* «- « * * 

'' His servants He, with new acquist 
Of true experience from this great event, 
With peace and consolation hath dismissed, 
And calm of mind, all passion spent." 



1 66 1. Revival of Parliainentary Oj)position. 205 

It is written of Samson that those " which he slew in his 
death were more than they which he slew in his life." 
Puritanism, with " all passion spent,'' would wage a war- 
fare with evil more effectual than when it appeared 
clothed in the habiliments of war at Naseby. 

Section IV. — The Revival of Parliamentary 
Oppositioji. 

Even the Cavalier Parliament did not stand on the 
ground which had been occupied by Charles I. before 
the meetinsT of the Long Parliament. Its 

° ° A. D. 1661. 

members held that the wearer of the crown ^ i. The Parlia- 
was inviolable. No man, no body of men ^^theCons^tl^ 
in the realm, had the right to call him to ac- ^^"^lo"^- 
count. But then his ministers were to be responsible, 
and in this way the action of the Government might be 
kept in accordance with the wishes of Parliament. 

So far, it was not unlikely that Charles II. would ac- 
cept with more or less reluctance the bonds against 
which his father had struggled in vain. His 
intellect was cast in a less narrow mould ^'^-^^T^^'f^ 

of Charles 11. 

than that of Charles I. He could under- 
stand the necessity of taking into account the opinions 
and prejudices of others, and of adapting his conduct to 
the varying requirements of the time. He cared enough 
about politics to take a personal interest in them, and to 
do his best to influence those who were themselves in- 
fluential. He was easy-going and voluptuous, fond of 
merriment and dissipation, unwilling to make sacrifices 
of any kind. Above all, he had learned by experience 
what the life of an exiled prince was like, and he had no 
desire to repeat the experiment. "Whatever else may 
happen," he was wont to say, " I have no wish to go 
again upon my travels." 



2o6 End of the Revolution. 1664. 

Such a king seemed marked out by nature to replace 
the authority of command by the authority of influence. 
? His "^"^ there was at least one quarter in which 

financial difficulties might be expected to arise. The 

House of Commons in the height of its 
loyalty, had not forgotten to keep a tight grip upon the 
national purse-strings. It was to wound Charles in his 
tenderest point. Lavish and profuse himself, he gathered 
round him those who were more lavish and profuse still. 
Greedy courtiers, and still more greedy mistresses, cried 
out for money with the persistency of the horse-leech. 
Men who had fought and bled for Charles I. began to 
look with suspicion upon the Court and Government of 
Charles II. 

A war with the Dutch, lasting from 1664 to 1667, 
brought matters to a crisis. The supporters of the 
A D 166 Restoration split into the Court party and 

\ 4. War with the Country party. In the days of Charles 
I. the Commons had often refused to vote 
money till their grievances had been redressed ; but when 
once the money was voted, they had no further control 
over it. The Country party now began to ask how the 
money which they had voted for the war was spent. 
Had it gone to pay soldiers and sailors, or had it served 
but to swell the tide of revelry at Whitehall ? 

It was a very natural question. Yet it was one which 
^ 5 The Com- ^"^ ^^^^ deeply into the Restoration settle- 
monsandtae ment. The Strength which the Commons 

expenditure. • j i 

acquired by the power of refusing taxation 
would be doubled if they could also acquire the power 
of examining into payments, and of controlling the ex- 
penditure. 

The chief opponent of this demand was Charles' 
leading minister. Lord Chancellor Clarendon, who, as 



1667. Revival of Fajiiajiicutaij opposition. 207 

Sir Edward Hyde, had taken part in the 
council of Charles I. after the presentation ^on's Consti- 
of the Remonstrance. In both reigns he op\'°^ns 
had been the main supporter of the doctrine 
that Government ought to be based upon the co-opera- 
tion of the Crown and the Parliament. He did not wish 
to see Parliament trodden under foot by the King. He 
did not wish to see the King trodden under foot by Par- 
liament. But he forgot that the common saying that 
" if two men ride on horseback, one must ride in front," 
applies to politics as well as to ordinary life. The 
moment any real cause of dissension arose, the Crown 
and Parliament would agree only in expecting that the 
other should give way. 

Clarendon was driven into disgrace and exile. Charles 
was not likely to struggle to retain him in office, as his 
father had struggled to retain Buckingham. 
He had ceased to care for him personally. §7. Claren- 

^, J ^ T , J aon's disgrace. 

Clarendon was an austere moralist and 
looked askance at the private life of his master. 

The position taken by the Country party was very far 
from being the same as that taken by the Dissenters, 
who refused to acknowledge the doctrine of non-resist- 
ance. But those who advocated it were moving in the 
same direction. They did not hold that it „ „ . . 

• 1 • 1 ^ , r ^ § 8. Position 

was right to resist the Crown by force of of the Coun- 
arms ; but they held that it was right to ^'^^ v^'^^y- 
limit its powers, to check its extravagances, and to control 
its expenditure. 

Section V. — Revival of the Idea of Toleration. 

It was in vain that the Cavalier Parliament had done its 
best to bury out of sight the question of toleration. Such 



2o8 End of the Revolution. 1667. 

a question could not be buried out of sight, 
idea of Too many persons were interested in it. 

Too many evils afflicted society, which 
could not be removed till the proper solution had been 
discovered. The solution attempted by Cromwell had 
been in itself imperfect, and had been discredited on ac- 
count of its imposition by armed force. But the idea had 
been laid before the world, and it would not always be 
neglected. 

During the first year of his reign Charles II. seemed 
as if he wished to take up a position even more widely 

tolerant than Cromwell's had been. It 
§j-l^? , seemed, too, as if his efforts were more 

adoption by ' 

the King. likely to be crowned with success in the 

end, because he was not sufficiently earnest 
about the matter to attempt to thrust his ideas at once 
down the throat of an unwilling nation. Indulgence to 
the Dissenters was to him simply a measure of practical 
policy, which would remove difficulties from his path 
and convert dangerous opponents into useful friends. It 
must have appeared probable to him that by watching 
his opportunity he would find a time when asperities had 
been sufficiently toned down to enable him to carry out 
his ideas into practice. 

But for one circumstance it is not improbable that 
some such opportunity would have occurred, and that 
the later Stuarts would have reaped the glory 
wisive^to *^^ being known as the founders of toleration 

include the in England. Unfortunately for them, they 
Catholics. had to drink of the cup which their grand- 

father had mixed. The unlucky resolution 
of James I. to marry his son to a Roman Catholic prin- 
cess had borne the fruits which might have been ex- 
pected. The children of Charles I. and of Henrietta 



i668-73- K<^vival of the Idea of Toleration. 209 

Maria adopted their mother's religion. The younger son, 
James, Duke of York, the presumptive heir to the 
Crown, soon avowed himself a Roman Catholic. Charles' 
religious opinions, whatever they were, were certain to 
hang upon him more loosely ; but his tendencies were 
all towards the Roman Catholic Church, and on one 
solemn occasion, whilst he was yet in exile, he had ac- 
knowledged its authority. 

Nothing could be more likely to make the idea of tol- 
eration distasteful to the nation than the suspicion that 
the Roman Catholics would in any way be , , ^ 

g 4. Influ- 

benefited by it. The memory of the Refor- ence of 

^ ^ . ... r -u r- J Lewis XIV. 

mation struggle was still fresh. Gunpowder 
Plot was not forgotten. Once more, too, there had arisen 
upon the Continent an aggressive Roman Catholic 
power. France in the days of Charles II. was still 
stronger than Spain had been in the days of Elizabeth. 
Lewis XIV. was the master of an apparently irresistible 
army. Every where his Court was looked up to as the 
very focus of civilization, the centre of art and literature 
and science. Charles II. was his first cousin, and he 
acknowledged his kinsman's spell. French habits and 
manners, French vices as well, became the fashion at 
Whitehall. From time to time Charles was sorely tempted 
to look for aid to the great monarch who had no Parlia- 
mentary Opposition to contend with, and who would 
perhaps take pity upon a brother king in difficulties. 

The Dutch Republic had placed itself in the forefront 
of the resistance to France, as it had placed itself in the 
forefront of the resistance to Spain. For 
a moment England, under the influence of ts^The ' 
the men who had risen to power after Afnalfce 
Clarendon's fall, joined in setting bounds to 
the conquests of Lewis. In 1668 the Triple Alliance 



2 1 o End of the Revolution. 1673. 

between England, Sweden, and the Dutch Netherlands 
compelled France to sign peace at Aix-la Chapelle. 

The opposition to France was not of long duration. 
In the following year Charles made overtures to Lewis 

which ripened into the secret treaty of 
\'^.T\^T' Dover in 1670. By that treaty Charles 

£ov?r°^ agreed to support Lewis in his war against 

Holland, whilst Lewis agreed to supply 
Charles with money. Charles was further to declare 
himself a convert to the Roman Catholic Church. 

From the last step Charles shrank. It would have 
been too dangerous, and he did not like to incur danger. 

On March 18, 1672, however, he fulfilled 
§7. TheDe- his Other promise by declaring war with the 
lnduigenc°e^ Dutch. Three days before he had issued 

his Declaration of Indulgence. Protestant 
Dissenters were to be allowed to worship freely in places 
appointed to them for the purpose ; Roman Catholics 
were to be freed from the penalties of the law so long as 
they contented themselves with worshipping in private 
houses. 

In itself the idea of toleration was still unpopular. 
Toleration for Roman Catholics was generally regarded 

with detestation. When the session opened 
§ 8^ With- in 1673 ParHament loudly denounced the 
fiie'decfira- illegality of a measure by which the law was 
ti°"- set aside in so sweeping a way. No doubt 

the extent of the prerogative of the Crown was still unde- 
fined in many directions, and the royal supremacy over 
the Church which had been handed down from the Tudor 
sovereigns was less hmited by custom than the royal 
supremacy over the State. But the Declaration of In- 
dulgence was so unpopular that those who attempted to 
defend it had an up-hill task before them. Even Dis- 



The Revolution of 1688. 211 

senters had refused to avail themselves of it, partly on 
the ground of its illegality, partly because they refused 
to accept a benefit which must be shared by the Roman 
Catholics. Before the determined opposition of Parlia- 
ment Charles gave way, and the Declaration of Indul- 
gence was withdrawn. 

Parliament was not content with its victory. It passed 
the Test Act, which excluded from office all who refused 
to abjure the doctrine of transubstantiation. gg. The 
The King's brother, the Duke of York, was '^^'' ^"• 
the first to suffer. He ceased to be Lord High Admiral 
of England. 

At the same time a Bill passed the House of Commons 
to give relief to the Protestant Dissenters. 
It met with opposition in the House of Lords, the°reiief o7 
and it never became law. Dissenters. 

Fifteen years were yet to pass before the throne of the 
Stuarts was overturned. The story of those years, full 
of events and vicissitudes, is the task of 
another pen. It is enough to say that Eng- pectof 
land was already on the track which led '°i^''^^i°"- 
eventually to the Revolution settlement of 1688. Crom- 
well's toleration for Puritans alone had been framed on 
too narrow a basis The apprehension of danger from 
the Roman Catholics, which culminated when a bigoted 
Roman Catholic king ascended the throne, was already 
leading enlightened Churchmen to think of the points 
which they had in common with the Dissenters rather 
than upon the points which separated them. 

Section VI — The Revolutioti of 1688. 

In the Revolution which placed William and Mary upon 
the throne, satisfaction was given to the two leading de- 



212 End of the Revolution. 

mands of the troubled period by which it 

A. D. 1688. ^ ^ 

a I. The had been preceded. On the one hand, 

Revolution. t^ ,. • tt i -i n 1 

Parhament was practically acknowledged as 
the most important factor in the Constitution, and the 
whole action of the ministers of the Crown was drawn 
within the sphere of its controlling power. On the other 
hand, except so far as the Roman Catholics were con- 
cerned, the Toleration Act and the establishment of the 
liberty of the press restricted the action of political bodies 
within comparatively narrow limits. It relieved them 
from the supposed duty of forcible interference v/ith the 
world of religion and with the world of thought. From 
thenceforward the struggle for political power was mere- 
ly a struggle for this or that object to be obtained in the 
immediate present. The shaping of the coming genera- 
tion was left to the free press and the free pulpit, which 
were uninfluenced by the result of Parliamentary strug- 
gles. A large portion of the reasons which led thought- 
ful men to oppose the supremacy of Parliament fell to 
the ground. The beaten statesman had a vantage- 
ground from which to move the world and to gain con- 
verts to his ideas. He need not cling unduly to power, 
out of fear lest in leaving it he would re-enter into in- 
significance. 

The political revolution of 1688, indeed, appears at 
first sight to have carried out the views of Cromwell's 

opponents rather than those of Cromwell. 
!al're!uU°^'^'' ^^^ Casting vote in all political difficulties 

lies with the nation as represented in Parlia- 
ment, and more especially in the House of Commons, 
and not with the Executive Government. No king and 
no prime minister ever contemplates in these days the 
possibility of marching a regiment of soldiers down to 
the House of Parliament, in order to distinguish by that 



1 688. The Revolution of 1688. 213 

rude instrument who are fit to have votes from those who 
are not. No king and no prime minister ever thinks of 
governing in a spirit directly opposed to that of which 
the nation dehberately approves. But, on the other 
hand, this has become possible because all the reasona- 
ble objections of Cromwell and of Strafford before him 
have been satisfactorily met. The House of Commons 
leaves judicial sentences to the Judges. The House of 
Commons does not now attempt to govern directly, but to 
control those who govern ; whilst the existence of the 
House of Lords compels it to frame its legislation under 
a sense of responsibility, and the good sense of the House 
of Lords has hitherto prevented a useful check from pro- 
ducing that dead lock in affairs which would happen if 
two bodies theoretically equal were to imagine them- 
selves practically equal. In a political constitution it is 
desirable that some one body should be supreme in all 
important matters, whilst it is equally desirable that it 
should not be so easily supreme as to be dispensed from 
the necessity of rendering a reason for its actions, or to 
be freed from the obligation of doing its best to concili- 
ate those who are opposed to it. These conditions were 
fulfilled by the Crown in the sixteenth century, and are 
fulfilled by the House of Commons in the eighteenth and 
nineteenth centuries. 

It is to no mere alteration of political mechanism that 
this happy result is due. The moderation of thought, 
the spirit of compromise, the readiness to „ .^.^.^^ 
give a hearing to any one who seems to have the English 
any valuable advice to offer, these form the ^ ^' 

soil out of which our English constitution has grown, and 
in which alone, whatever modifications it may hereafter 
need, it will in future continue to flourish. Not on one 
side alone of the great civil strife of the seventeenth cen- 



214 End of the Revolution. 

tury are our moral and intellectual ancestors. The high 
energy of a statesmanship founded upon a national re- 
solve may brace itself to noble deeds by the example of 
Eliot, whilst Strafford's warnings may serve to remind 
us of the necessity of giving due weight to intelligence 
in the conduct of the State. He who thinks of modera- 
tion, of wise dislike of the application of force to solve 
religious and political difficulties may think of Falkland, 
whilst the high ideal of life, without which all work de- 
generates into self-seeking, is inseparably connected 
with the name of Milton. The thoughts which these 
men and others like them made their own did not perish 
with their failure to achieve political success. The re- 
ligion of Herbert, and of Laud reappeared modified but 
not suppressed after the Long Parliament and Cromwell 
had done their uttermost. The religion of Sibbes and 
Milton reappeared after the Restoration in the " Paradise 
Lost" and in the "Pilgrim's Progress." The serious 
intelligence of the Puritan, the breadth of view and the 
artistic perception of the Churchman, became elements 
of the national life all the more fruitful of good when 
they ceased to come into violent collision with one an- 
other. 



INDEX. 



ABB 

ABBOTT, George, Archbishop oi 
Canterbury, connives at non- 
conformity, i6 ; dies, 88 

Aix-la-Chapelle, peace of, 210 

Areo^Kgitica, the, 146 

Argyle, Earl, and subsequently Mar- 
quis of, leader of the Scottish Pres- 
byterians, 124 ; defeated by Mon- 
trose, 148 ; objects to an alliance 
between Scotland and the king, 156 

Army, the Parliamentary, formation 
of, 132; Cromwell's ideas about, 
134 ; independency in, 143 ; reor- 
ganized as the New Model, 148 ; 
flrives the kins:'s forces out of the 
field, 149 ; visit of Baxter to, 150; 
begins to quarrel with the Parlia- 
ment, 152 ; gets possession of the 
king, 153; ejects eleven Presbyte- 
rian members from Parliament, and 
draws up heads of a settlement with 
the king, 154; resolves to call the 
king to account, 157; remonstran- 
ces of, 158 ; feeling of, against the 
king, 161 ; divine right claimed by, 
170; overthrows Richard Crom- 
well's Protectorate, and restores 
the Long Parliament, 193 ; over- 
throws it and restores it again, 194; 
disbandment of, 198 

Articles of religion, the, Charles' de- 
claration prefixed to, 67 ; interpre- 
tation placed on by the Commons, 
69 

Arundel taken by the Parliamentary 
troops, 140 

Assembly, General, meets at Glas- 
gow, 109 ; refuses to dissolve, 109 

Association, the Eastern, 143 

Attainder, bill of, against Strafford, 
117 



BUR 

BACON, his tolerant disposition, 
5 ; advises James how to deal 
with Parliaments, 20; becomes Lord 
Chancellor, 34 ; is accused of cor- 
ruption, 35 ; his sentence, 36 

Barebone's Parliament, see Nomi- 
nees, Assembly of 

Bastwick, John, sentenced in the Star 
Chamber, 98; sent to the Scilly 
Isles, 99 

Bate, John, decision on his case, 18 

Baxter, Richard, his visit to the army, 
150 

Bemerton, George Herbert at, 82 

Bishops, Bill to restrain the authority 
of, 121 

Bishops' war, the first, in ; the se- 
cond, 114 

Blake, Robert, sent to the Mediterra- 
nean, 181 ; destroys pirate ships at 
Tunis, 182 

Bohemia, revolution in, 30; James 
refuses to inierlere in, 32 

Breda, declaration of, 197 

Bristol taken by the king, 125 

Buckingham, successively Earl, Mar- 
quis, and Duke of, becomes James' 
favorite, 26 ; his friends connected 
with the monopolies, 34 ; accom- 
panies Charles to Madrid, 41 ; sup- 
ported by the Commons in his de- 
mand for war with Spain, 46 ; urges 
the impeachment of Middlesex, 48 ; 
his schemes for carrying on war, 49 ; 
goes to Holland, 53 ; is impeached, 
56 ; goes to Rhe, 58 ; fails there, 59 ; 
prepares to go to Rochelle, 62 ; is 
assassinated, 63 

Burton, Henry, sentenced in the Star 
Chamber, 94; sent to Guernsey, 
98 



2l6 



Index. 



CHA 

CADIZ, expedition to, 52 
Calvin, his influence over the 
Puritans, 2 
Cambridge, University of, reformed 

by Manchester, 138 
Canons passed in 1604, 15 
Cape Cod, the " Mayflower" anchors 

within, 86 
Carisbrooke Castle, Charles I. at, 155 
Carr, Robert, Earl of Somerset, 26 
Catesby, Robert, his part in the Gun- 
powder Plot, 22 
Catholics, treatment of by Elizabeth, 
21 ; and by James, 22-23 ; attacked 
by the Commons, 39 ; provisions 
for in the Spani-h marriage treaty, 
44; engagement made that they 
shall not be included ia French 
treaty, 48 ; petition of the Commons 
against, 51 
Chambers, Richard, refuses to pay 
tonnage and poundage, and is fined 
and imprisoned, 72 
Chancery, reform of, 176 
Charles I. {see Charles, Prince of 
Wales), accession of, 50; meets his 
first Parliament, 50; dissolves it, 
52 ; lends ship to the French 54 ; 
is involved in disputes with 
France, 54; dissolves his second 
Parliament, and demands a free 
gift from the country, 56 ; dismisses 
the queen's French attendants, 57; 
urges his ministers to support the 
expedition to Rh6, 58 ; summons a 
third Parliament, 59; grants the 
Petition of Right, 60 ; prorogues 
Parliament, 62 ; his claim to levy 
tonnage and poundage disputed, 64; 
promotes divines attacked by the 
Commons, 66; his declaration on 
the Articles, 67; dissolves his third 
Parliament, 71 ; his political posi- 
tion, 74 ; negotiates about the Pa- 
latinate, 78 ; converses with an 
emissary from Rome, 93 ; orders 
the issue of writs of ship-money, 
95 ; demands ship-money from the 
inland counties, 96; imposes a 
Prayer-book on Scotland, 107; gives 
way to resistance and summons a 
General Assembly, 108 ; leads an 
army against the Scotch, in ; sum- 
mons the Short Parliament, 112 ; is 
present at the impeachment of 
Strafford, 115 ; assents to the Bill of 
Attainder against him, 117; assents 



COM 

to bills limiting the power of the 
Crown, 118 ; accepts the services of 
Falkland and Hyde, 123; visiti 
Scotland, 124 ; receives the Grand 
Remonstrance, and impeaches the 
five members, 127; attempts to 
seize them in the House, 128 ; ele- 
ments of his army, 131 ; begins the 
civil war, and fights at Edgthdl, 
133; turns back from Brentford, 
133; successes of, 135; reduces 
Essex's army to surrender, 145 ; is 
completely beaten at Naseby, 149 ; 
takes refuge with the Scots, 150; 
negotiations with, 151 ; is delivered 
up by the Scots and lodged at 
Holmby House, 152 ; taken posses- 
sion of by the army, 153 ; proposals 
offered by the army to, 154; at 
Carisbrooke, 155; stirs up the se- 
cond civil war, 156; brought to 
Hurst Castle and Windsor, 158; 
trial and execution of, 160; charac- 
ter of the proceedings against, 161 

Charles II., crowned in Scotland, 164 ; 
escapes after the battle of Worces- 
ter, 166; restoration of, 193; eccle- 
siastical settlement under, 199 ; his 
character, 205 ; his attitude towards 
the idea of toleration, 208 ; influ- 
enced by Louis XIV., 209 ; issues 
the Declaration of Indulgence, 210 

Charles, Prince of Wal's, afterwards 
Charles I., negotiations for his mar- 
riage, 24, 30; goes to Madrid, 41 ; 
his courtship of the Infanta, 44 ; re- 
turns, 45 ; promises not to tolerate 
the Catholics, and urges the im- 
peachment of Middlesex, 48 ; treaty 
signed for his marriage, 48; see 
Charles I. 

Cheynell, Francis, visits Chilling- 
worth, 140 

Chillingworth, William, a visitor at 
Great Tew, 121 ; death of, 140 

Christian IV. of Denmark makes 
peace with the Emperor, 33 ; aid 
proposed to be sent to, 49 ; is de- 

. feated at Lutter, 56 

City of London, see London, City of 

Clarendon, Earl of, fa'l of, 198, see 
Hyde, Edward 

Colchester, siege of, 157 

Commons, the House of, comes into 
collision with James in his first 
Parliament, 15 ; questions his right 
to lay impositions, 19-21 ; votes 



Index. 



2 17 



CRO 

money to the king, 32 ; its protesta- 
tion on behalf of the Palatinate, 37 ; 
distrusts Spain, 38 ; advises a war 
with Spain, and protests against 
interference with its debates, 39 ; 
supports Buckingham in breaking 
with Spain, 46; looks coldly on a 
French alliance, 40; ojiposition of 
to Charles I., 51 ; attacks Bucking- 
ham, 56; demands the Petition of 
Right, 6j; asks for Buckingham's 
dismissal, 62 ; disputes the king's 
claim to tonnage and poundage, 64 ; 
its strong feelings about religion, 
65 ; attacks Montague and Man- 
waring, 67 ; debates in on tonnage 
and poundage and religion, 69 ; tu- 
mult in, 71 ; impeaches Straftbrd, 
115; obtains the limitation of the 
king's powers, 119; demands alter- 
ations in the Church, 119; orders 
ceremonial changes, 123 ; the Grand 
Remonstrance voted in, 126 ; im- 
peachment by the king of members 
of, 127; attempt to seize members 
of, 128 ; takes refuge in the city, 
129 ; conservatism of, 129 ; adopts 
Presbyterianism, 136; begins to 
quarrel with the army, 152 ; mem- 
bers of, ejected by the army, 154; 
renewed Presbyterian majority in, 
157; Pride's Purge of, 159; sets 
aside the House of Lords, 159 ; cor- 
ruption in, 169 ; dissolved by Crom- 
well, 170 
Commonwealth, the, establishment 

of, 162 
Communion tables, removal of, 89 
Comus, Milton's, 83 
Connaught, proposed colonization of, 

105 ; removal of the Irish to, 164 
Contract, the great, 18, 19 
Conventicle Act, the, 199 
Convoca'ion passes canons, 15 
Cornwall, surrender of Essex's army 

in, 145 ; royalist rising in, 157 
Corporation Act, the, 200 
Council of State, functions of, 162 
Covenant, the, signed in Scotland, 

108; in England, 137 
Crewe, Chief Justice, dismissal of, 57 
Cromwell, Oliver, his early life, 133 ; 
enlists religious men, 134 ; his suc- 
cesses in the eastern counties, 143 ; 
wins the batde of Marston Moor, 
144; his opinions on toleration, 
151 ; defeats Hamilton at Preston, 



EDG 

157; takes part in the king's trial, 
160 ; commands in Ireland, 162 ; 
defeats the Scots at Dunbar, 165 ; 
and at Worcester, 165 ; his objec- 
tions to the scheme of the House 
of Commons for new elections, i63 ; 
dissolves the Long Parliament, 170 ; 
opens the Assembly of Nominees, 
170; receives the resignation of the 
Assemb y's powers, 172; becomes 
Protector, 174; character of his 
government, 175 ; interferes with 
his first Parliament, 176; dissolves 
it, 178 ; resistance to, 178 ; appoints 
the major-generals, 180 ; suppresses 
Episcopalian worship, iCt ; makes 
war against Spain, i8r ; insists upon 
the c ssation of the persecution in 
Piedmont, 183; opens his second 
Parliament, 183 ; excludes members 
from it, 185 ; interferes on behalf of 
Nayler, 185; refuses the title of 
king, 186 ; dissolves Parliament, 
187; character of his system of 
government, 188 ; his sickness, 190 ; 
dies, 190 
Cromwell, Richard, Protectorate of, 
192, 193 ; Monk's remark on, 195 

DANTE, close of his Divina Com- 
■media, 203 
Declaration of Indulgence, the, 210 
Declaration of Sports, issue of, 88 
Denbigh, Earl of, ordered to relieve 

Rochelle, 59 ; fails in doing it, 61 
Devonshire, Royalist rising in, 157 
DJgby, Lord, his mission to Vienna, 

37 

Dissenters, treatment of in the reign 
of Charles II., 199; bill for the re- 
lief of, 211 

Dover, treaty of, 210 

Drogheda taken by Cromwell, 163 

Dublin, Cromwell lands at, 163 

Dunbar, battle of, 165 

Dundee taken by Montrose, 148 

Dunes, battle of the, 189 

Dunse Law, the Scotch army at, 112 

Dutch, fisheries of the, 95 ; war of 
the Commonwealth with, 168 ; war 
of Charles II. with, 206; enter the 
Triple Alliance, 209 



EDGEHILL, battle of, 133 
Edinburgh, riot in, 107 ; Crom- 
well at, 165 



O 



2l8 



Index. 



FRE 

Eliot, Sir John, takes the lead in 
Charles' second Parliament, 55; 
manages Buckingham's impeach- 
ment, 56; contrasted with Went- 
worth, 60; takes the lead in 1629, 
70 ; his conduct on the last day of 
the session, 71 ; his political views, 
73 ; his imprisonment and death, 74 

Elizabeth, Queen of England, opposed 
to the Puritans, 2 ; supports Epis- 
copacy, 3 ; is the centre of national 
life, 11; courts popularity, 12; her 
treatment of the Catholics, 21 

Episcopacy supported by Queen 
Elizabeth, 3; its unpopularity in 
Scotland, 106; abolished in Scot- 
land, 107; attack of thtf English 
House of Commons upon. 120 

Essex, Earl of, his divorce, 26; ap- 
pointed commander of thr: Parlia- 
mentary army, 132 ; relievos Glou- 
cester, and fights the first battle of 
Newbury, 136 ; fails in Comv"all,i45 

Estates of the realm, the three^ loi 

Evelyn, John, complains of x!a.f per- 
secution of the Church, 181 

FAIRFAX, Sir Thomas, his cam- 
paign in Yorkshire, 144 ; com- 
mands the New Model, 148 ; takes 
no part in the trial of the king, 16031 
declines to command against thej 
Scots, 164 : joins Monk, 195 

Falkland, Viscount, his character, 
121 ; society at his house, 122 ; takes 
service under the crown, 123 ; death 
of, 136 

Fawkes, Guy, his part in the Gun- 
powder Plot, 22; his seizure and 
execution, 24 

Felton, John, determines to murder 
Buckingham, 62 ; murders him, 63 

Feoffees of impropriations, 84 

Ferdinand II. chosen Emperor, 31 

Fleetwood proposed by the army as 
General, 193 

Forest courts, 94 

France, peace with, 25; alliance of 
sought by James, 47; marriage 
treaty with, 48 ; dispute with, 54 ; 
war with, 57; increasing naval 
power of, 95; Cromwell's league 
with, 183 

Frederick V., Elector Palatinate, 
chosen king of Bohemia, 31 

Fresh Suit against Hutnan Ceremo- 
nies, character of the book, 87 



IND 

GERMANY, religious settlement 
in, 5 ; war in, 30 
Glasgow, genei al assembly of, 109 
Gloucester, siege of, 136 
Great council, the, 114 
Great 'lew, society at, 121 
Gunpowder Plot, formation of the, 

22 ; its failure, 23 
Gustavus Adolphus lands in Germany 

81 



H 



ABE AS Corpus, case of, 59 



Hague, the, murder of the 
English ambassador at, 163 

Hamilton, Marquis of, mission of to 
Scotland, 108 ; dissolves the Gene- 
ral Assembly, 109; invades England, 
156 

Hampden, John, resists the payment 
of ship-money, 97; judgment against 
him, 98; impeachment of, 127; 
thinks Cromwell's idea of religious 
soldiers unpractical, 134 ; death of, 

135 
Hampton Court, conferences at, 13 
Hazelrig, Arthur, impeachment of, 127 
Henrietta Maria, seen by Prince 
Charles, 42 ; the treaty for her mar- 
riage signed, 48 ; arrives in Eng- 
land, 50 
Herbert, George, character of his 

churchmanship and poetry, 82 
High Commission, Court of, its rise, 
9 ; its character, 10 ; abolition of, 119 
High Court of Justice, 159 
Hiifriotnastix , 90 

Hollos, Denzil, holds the speaker in 
his chair, 71 ; impeachment of, 117 
Holmby House, Charles I. at, 152 
Hooker, his Ecclesiastical Polity, 5 
Hue's Cross, re-named by Winthrop, 

87 
Hurst Castl°, Charles I. at, 158 
Hyde, Edward, his character, 122; ac- 
cepts service 'trder the crown, 123 



I MPEACHMEN-T, revived inform- 
ally in Bacon"^ case, 36; of 
Middlesex, 48 ; of Buckingham, 56 ; 
of Strafford, 115 
Impositions, the new, laid by the 
king, and questioned by the Com- 
mons, 18 
Independents, the, conflict of, with 
the Presbyterians, 139; their 



Index. 



219 



KEN 

strength in the army, 143 ; the 
battle of Marston Moor favorable 
to, 144 ; their views on liberty of 
worship, 145 ; see Separatists 
Instrument of Government, 174 
Ireland, settlement of i i ; Ulslcr 
colonized in, 102 ; under Went- 
worth's government, 104 ; insurrec- 
tion in, 119; Cromwell in, 162; 
treatment of by Cromwell, 163 ; 
members from sit in Cromwell's 
Parliament, 176 

JAMAICA, conquest of, 183 
James I., his accession, 13 ; sum- 
mons the Hampton Court Confer- 
ence, 14; treats the Puritans there 
with contempt, 15 ; his views about 
the union with Scotland, 16 ; his 
financial difficulties, 17; lays the 
new impositions and enters into the 
great contract, 19; dissolves his 
first Parliament, 20; dissolves his 
second Parliament, 21 ; negotiates 
a marriage treaty with Spain, 24; 
consents to Raleigh's expedition, 
25; sends him to the scaffold, 26; 
advances Somerset, 26; and Villiers, 
26 ; his ideas about the royal au- 
thority, 28 ; despises popularity, 30 ; 
takes no active part in the war in 
Germany, 31 ; allows volunteers to 
go to the Palatinate, and calls his 
third Parliament, 32 ; gives up the 
monopolies, 34 ; mediates in Ger- 
many, 37 ; asks Parliament for 
money, 38 ; dissolves Parliament, 
40; prepares for the reception of 
the Infanta, 44 ; is compelled to 
break with Spain, 46; desires an 
alliance with France, 47; regrets 
the impeachment of Middlesex, 48 ; 
death of, 49 

James, Duke of York, avows himself 
a Roman Catholic, 209 ; driven out 
of office by the Test Act, 211 

Joyce, Cornet, carries the king to the 
army, 153 

Judges, ibe, decide on the naturaliza- 
tion of Scotchmen, 1 7 ; and on Bate's 
case, 18 ; declare ship-money legal, 
96,97 

KENT, Royalist rising in, 157 
Kimbolton, Lord, impeach- 
ment of by the king, 127 ; see Man- 
chester, Earl of 



MAN 
Knighthood, compositions for, 77 

LAMBERT speaks contemptuously 
J of the Parliament, and defeats 
the Royalists, 193 ; his conversation 
with Lenthall, 194 

Laud, William, successively Bishop 
of London and Archbishop of Can- 
terbury, his views on uniformity, 
78 ; his ecclesiastical changes, 81 ; 
becomes Archbishop of Canterbury 
and reprimands Richardson, 89 ; 
wishes to move the communioa 
tables, 89 ; his metropolitan visita- 
tions, 93; imposes a new Prayer 
Book on Scotland, 107; committed 
to the Tower, 131 ; execution of, 139 

Leighton, Alexander, sentenced in the 
Star Chamber, 80 

Lenthall, William, Speaker of the 
House of Commons in the Long 
Parliament, his conduct when the 
king visits the House, 128 ; restored 
to the chair by the army, 194 ; his 
conversation with Lambert, 194 

Leven, Earl of, commands the Scotch 
at Marston Moor, 144 

Lewis XIII., king of France, agrees 
to marry his sister to Charles, 48 ; 
takes umbrage at Charles' treat- 
ment of the Cathohcs, 54 ; lays 
siege to Rochelle, 57 

Lewis XIV., king of France, his in- 
fluence in Europe, 209 

Leyden, Separatists at, 85 

London, City of, welcomes the king 
on his return from Scctlanrl, 127 ; 
turns against him after his attempt 
to seize the five members, 128; 
sends its forces to meet the king at 
Turnham Green, 133; supports the 
Presbyterians, 154; occupied by 
the army, 154; riots in, 157; resists 
the Rump, 191 

Lords, House of, in opposition to the 
Crown, 114 ; throws out a bill 
against Bishops, 121 ; set aside by 
the House of Commons, 159 ; Crom- 
well's, 164-165 

Lycidas, Milton's, 99 

MADRID, arrival of Prince 
Charles at, 42 ; murder of an 
English ambas'sadbr at, 163 
Major-generals, the, 180; withdrawn, 

185 
Manchester, Earl of, drives those who 



220 



Index. 



NEW 

refuse the covenant out of Cam- 
bridge, 138 ; fights the second battle 
of Newbury, and quarrels with 
Cromwell, 146 

Mansfield, Count, commands in the 
Upper Palatinate, 38; retreats to 
the Lower Palatinate, 38; put in 
command of English troops, 49 ; 
failure of his expedition, 50 

Manwaring, Roger, attacked by the 
Commons, 67 

Maria, the Infanta, negotiations to 
marry her to Prince Charles, 24 ; 
declares that she will not marry 
him, 43 

Marston Moor, battle of, 144; results 
of favorable to the Independents, 145 

Massachusetts, colonization of, 87 

" Mayflower," voyage of the, 86 

Metropolitan visitations, 93 

Middlesex, Earl of, impeachment of, 
48 

Militia, struggle for the control of, 129 

Mikon, John, his II Penseroso, gi ; 
his CojJtus,g2 • his Lycidas, 99 ; his 
V ew of liberty, 146 ; his Areopagi- 
tica, 146 ; his sonnet to Cromwell, 
155 ; his sonnet on the massacre in 
Piedmont, 182 ; his Paradise Lost 
and Paradise Regained, 201 ; his 
Saynson Agonistes , 204 

Moderates in the House of Commons, 
121 ; their weakness, 122 ; oppose 
the Grand Remonstrance, 126 

Monk, George, marches into England, 
195 ; declares for a free Parliament, 
196 

Monopolies, the, attacked by the 

. Commons, 33 

Montague, Richard, attacked by the 
Commons and made a bishop, 66 

Montrose, Earl, and subsequently 
Marquis of accused of a plot against 
Argyle, 124 ; his campaigns in the 
Highlands, 148 ; defeated at Philip- 
haugh, 149 ; reappears in Scotland, 
is taken, and executed, 163 

Morley, George, a visitor at Great 
Tew, 122 

NASEBY, battle of, 149 
Nayler, James, persecution of, 
185 
Newark, the king takes refuge with 

the Scots at, 150 
Newburn, rout of, 114 
Newbury, first battle of, 136 



PIE 

Newcastle, Charles I. at, 151 
Newcastle, Marquis of, defeated at 

Marston Moor, 144 
New England, colonization of, 86 
Newmarket, the king at, 154 
New Model, the, 148 
Newport, treaty of, 156, 157 
Nominees, A sembly of, meets, 170; 

resigns its powers into Cromwell's 

hands, 172 
Non-resistance, doctrine of, 200 
Nottingham, the king's standard set 

up at, 132 
Noy plans the ship-money writ, 95 ; 

death of, 95 

ORKNEYS, Montrose lands in 
the, 164 
Oxford, Parliament adjourned to, 51 ; 
Charles fixes his headquarters at, 
135 

PALATINATE, the, invaded by 
the Spaniards, 32 ; declaration 
of the Commons about, 37 ; struggle 
of Mansfeld and Tilly for, 38 ; loss 
of, 40 ; fresh negotiations about, 78 

Paradise Lost, 202 

Paradise Regained, 202 

Parliament, p sition of m the Mid- 
dle Ages, 8 ; the first of James I., 
15-20, 24 ; the second of James I., 
21 ; the third of James I., 32-40 ; 
the fourth of James I., 46-47; the 
first of Charles I., 50-51 ; the second 
of Charles I., 54-55; the third of 
Charles I., 59-75 ; the Short, 112 ; 
the Long, 11 5-1 70; Barebone's, or 
Assembly of Nominees, 170-173 ; 
first of the Protectorate, 173-178 ; 
second of the Protectorate, 183-186; 
the Long restored, r87-i9o ; Con- 
vention, 197 ; Cavalier, 199 

Penn, expedition of, to the West In- 
dies, 183 

Penruddock, rising of against Crom- 
well, 179 

Penseroso, II, 91 

Petition and advice, the, i8§ 

Petition of Right, the, introduced, 
6o ; receives the Royal assent, 61 

Philips, Sir Robert, his speech 
against Spain, 39 

Philip IV., King of Spain, his diffi- 
culties about his sister's marriage,43 

Piedmont, massacre of the Vaudois 
in, 182 



Iv-dex. 



REM 

Plymouth in New England, founda- 
' tion of, 86 

Portland, Earl of, seeks a Spanish 
alliance, 94 ; death of, 95 

Portsmouth, landing of Prince Charles 
at, 46 ; its garrison declares against 
the army leader^, 194 

Powick Bridge, skirmish at, 133 

Prayer Book, contormiiy to the Eng- 
lish, required by Laud, 82 ; the 
Scottish, 107 

Presbyterianism disliked by Elizabeth 
3 ; re-introduced into Scotland, 1C9 ; 
partial establishment of in England, 
136 

Presbyterians, the, conflict of, with 
the Independents, 139 ; their 
strength in Parliament, 145 ; offer 
terms to the king, 151 ; desire to 
disband the army, 152 ; eleven of 
their members expelled by the army, 
156 ; regain power in the Commons, 
and re-open negotiations with the 
king, 158 

Pre -ton, battle of, 157 

Pride's Purge, 159 

Prynne, William, his Histriomastix, 
go ; his sentence in the Star Cham- 
ber, 91 ; sentenced agc;in in the Star 
Chamber, 98 

Puritans, their part in the Reforma- 
tion, 2 ; are disliked by Elizabeth, 
2 ; abandon Presbyterianism, 4 ; in- 
vited to the Hampton Court con- 
ference, 14 ; are ordered to conform, 
15 ; expelled from their livings for 
nonconformity, 16 ; attacked by 
Laud, 78 ; self-confidence of, 83 ; 
general conformity of, 84 ; object to 
the Declaration of Sports, 89 

Pym, John, does not follow Elif t in 
Kolie's case, 70 ; moves the im- 
peachment of Strafford, 115 ; op- 
poses the change of proceeding to 
a Hill of Attainder, 117; impeach- 
ment of, 127 ; death of, 138 

RAGLAN Castle, surrender of, 149 
Raleigh's expedii^ion to Guiana, 
25 ; his execution, 26 
Reading taken by the Parliamenta- 
rians, 135 
Recusants, treatment of the, 21 
Reformation, the English, i 
Reformers, the, i 

Remonstrance, the Grand, 126; its 
language not favorable to liberty, 131 



SHA 

Restoration, the, 197 

Revolution of 1688, the, 212 

Rhe, Isle of, Buckingham's expedi- 
tion to, 58 

Richardson, Chief Justice, repri- 
manded for suppressing feasts in 
Somersetshire, 89 

Rochelle attacked by the French, 57 ; 
Denbigh ordered to relieve, 59 ; his 
failure before, 61 ; intention ( f 
Buckingham to relieve, 62 ; sur- 
renders, 63 

Rolle, Henry, question of the liability 
of his Roods to tonnage and pound- 
age, 68, 69 

Root and Branch Bill, the, 121 

Roundway Down, success of the 
Royalisis at, 135 

Rupert. Prince, leads the cavalry at 
Edgehill, 133 ; fights at Marston 
Moor, 144 

ST. DOMINGO, failure of Penn 
and Venables at, 183 

Salisbury, Royalist disturbances at, 
179 

Samson Agonist es, the, 204 

Savoy, Duke of, massacres the Vau- 
dois, 182 

Scotch, the decision of the judges on 
their naturalization, 17 

Scotland, Episcopacy in, ic6; Prayer 
Book introduced into, 107; General 
Assembly of, 109 ; resistance to the 
king in, 109 ; characterof the move- 
ment in, no ; visit of the king to, 
124; forms a league with England, 
137; takes psrt against the king, 
144; takes the king's part, 156; 
coronation of Charles II. in, 164; 
members from sit in CromwcU s 
Parliaments, 176 

Scottish Army,the, encamps at Dunse 
Law, 112; invades England, 114; 
returns to Scotland, 119 ; crosses' 
the border and fights at Marston 
Moor, 144 ; receives the king after 
the battle of Naseby, 150; delivers 
up the kin?, 152 ; prepares to in- 
vade England under Hamilton, 156; 
is defeated at Preston, 157; is de- 
feated at Dimbar, 165 ; is defeated 
at Worcester, 165 

Self-denying ordinance, 146 

Separatists, congregation of, at Ley- 
den, 85 ; emigrate to America, 86 

Shakespeare, liis moral teaching, 6; 



222 



Index. 



TUD 

character of his loyalty, ii ; his 
views on revolutions, 154 

Sheldon, Gilbert, a visitor at Great 
Tew, 122 

Sh rfield, Henry, sentenced in the 
Star Chamber, 80 

Ship-money levied, 95 ; raised from 
the inland counties, 96; declared 
legal by the judges, 96, 97 ; declared 
illegal by Act of Parliament, 119 

Sibbes, Richard, character of his 
Puritanism, 84 ; his attachment to 
the Church, 85 

Skippon leads the forces of the city 
to Turnham (jreen, 133 

Somerset, Earl of, his rise and fall, 26 

!£omersetshire, dedication feasts in, 
88 

Spain makes peace with France, 4 ; 
its negotiations with England, 24 ; 
distrust of, in the House of Com- 
mons, 38 ; warlike tendencies in 
England against, 45 ; war waged 
against, 53 ; alliance directed 
against, 54 ; peace with, 95 ; Crom- 
well's quarrel with, 181 ; progress 
of the war with, 182, 184, 189 

Star Chamber, Court of, its rise, 9 ; its 
character, 10; sentence of, against 
Chambers, 72 ; against Leighton 
and Sherfield, 80 ; against Prynne, 
91 ; against Prynne, Bastwick, Bur- 
ton, 98 ; abolished by Act of Par- 
liament, 119 

Stayner captures a Spanish fleet, 185 

Strafford, Earl of, advises the sum- 
moning of the Short Parliament, 
112 ; joins Charles in the north, 114; 
impeached, 115; Bill of Attainder 
against, 117; execution of, 118 

Strode, William, impeachment of, 127 

TEST Act, the, 211 
Thirty Years' War, outbreak of, 31 

" Thorough," Laud's system of, 93 

Tilly invades the Palatinate, 38 

Toleration Act, the, 212 

Tonnage and poundage, the king's 
right to raise, disputed, 64 

Triple Alliance, the, 209 

Tudor, House of, its strong govern- 
ment, 8 



YOR 

Turnham Green, the City forces at, 
133 



u 



LSTER colonized, 102 



VALENTINE, Benjamin, holds 
the Speaker in his chair, 71 

Vane, Sir Henry, the younger, brings 
fresh evidence against Straflford, 
115 ; his political ideas, 166 

Vaudois, pcisecuted by the Duke of 
Savoy, 182; Milton's sonnet on, 182 

Venables takes part in Penn's expe- 
dition to the West Indies, 182 

Verney, Sir Edmund, his conversa- 
tion with Hyde, 131 

Vervins, peace of, 4 

Virginia, colonization of, 86 

WALES, outbreak of war in, 157 
Wentworth, Sir Thomas, his 
part in Charles' third Parliament, 
59 ; contrasted with Eliot, 60 ; be- 
comes President of the North, 79 ; 
becomes Lord Deputy of Ireland, 
103 ; his reforms, 104 ; proposes to 
colonize Connaught, 105; created 
Earl of Strafford, 112; see Straf- 
ford, Earl of 

West Indies, expedition sent by 
Cromwell to, 182 

Westminster Assembly, the, 137 

Weston, Lord Treasurer, character 
of his policy, 77; created Earl of 
Portland, 94; see Portland, Earl 
of 

Wexford taken by Cromwell, 163 

Wimbledon, Viscount, leads the ex- 
pedition to Cadiz, 52 

Winceby, fight at, 143 

Winnington Bridge, defeat of the 
Royalists at, 194 

Winthrop, John, settles in Massa- 
chusetts, 87 ; changes the name of 
Hue's Cross, 87 

Worcester, battle of, 165 



YORK, besieged by the Parlia- 
mentary army, 144 



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dinavian exodus, the conquest of England, and Nonnan 
administration, are full of vigor and cannot fail of holding the 
reader's attention." — Episcopal Register. 

'* The style of the author is vigorous and animated, and he 
has given a valuable sketch of the origin and progress of the 
great Northern movement that has shaped the history of 
modern Europe." — Boston Transcript. 



EPOCHS OF MODERN HISTORY 

THE CRUSADES. By Rev. G. W. Cox. 

" To be warmly commended for important qualities. The 
author shows conscientious fidelity to the materials, and such 
skill in the use of them, that, as a result, the reader has 
before him a narrative related in a style that makes it truly 
fascinating. ' ' — Congregationalist. 

" It is written in a pure and flowing style, and its arrange- 
ment and treatment of subject are exceptional." — Christian 
Intelligencer. 

THE EARLY P LA N TAGEN ETS— Their 
Relation to tins History of Europe; The 
Foundation and Growth of Constitutional 
Government. By Rev. W. Stubbs, M.A. 

"Nothing could be desired more clear, succinct, and well 
arranged. All parts of the book are well done. It may be 
pronounced the best existing brief history of the constitution 
for this, its most important period." — The Nation. 

''Prof. Stubbs has presented leading events with such fair- 
ness and wisdom as are seldom found. He is remarkably 
clear and satisfactory. " — The Churchman. 

EDWARD III. By Rev. W. Warburton, M.A. 

" The author has done his work well, and we commend it 
as containing in small space all essential matter." — New York 
Independent. 

' ' Events and movements are admirably condensed by the 
author, and presented in such attractive form as to entertain 
as well as instruct." — Chicago Interior. 

THE HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK 
—The Conquest and Loss of France. By 

James Gairdner. 

" Prepared in a most careful and thorough manner, and 
ought to be read by every student. " — New York Times. 

"It leaves nothing to be desired as regards compactness, 
accuracy, and excellence of literary execution." — Boston 
Journal. 



EPOCHS. OF MODERN HISTORY 

THE ERA OF THE PROTESTANT REVO- 
LUTION. By Frederic Seebohm. With Notes, on 
Books in English relating to the Reformation, by Prof. 
George P. Fisher, D.D. 

" For an impartial record of the civil and ecclesiastical 
changes about four hundred years ago, we cannot commend a 
better manual." — Sunday- School Times. 

"All that could be desired, as well in execution as in plan. 
The narrative is animated, and the selection and grouping of 
events skillful and effective." — The Nation. 

THE EARLY TUDORS— Henry VII., Henry 

VIII. By Rev. C. E. Moberley, M.A., late Master in 
Rugby School. 

"Is concise, scholarly, and accurate. On the epoch of which 
it treats, we know of no work which equals it." — N. Y. Observer. 

" A marvel of clear and succinct brevity and good historical 
judgment. There is hardly a better book of its kind to be 
named." — New York Independent. 

THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. By Rev. M. 
Creighton, M.A. 

" Clear and compact in style ; careful in their facts, and 
just in interpretation of them. It sheds much light on the 
progress of the Reformation and the origin of the Popish 
reaction during Queen Elizabeth's reign ; also, the relation of 
Jesuitism to the latter." — Presbyterian Review. 

" A clear, concise, and just story of an era crowded with 
events of interest and importance." — New York World. 

THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR- 1 61 8-1 648. 

By Samuel Rawson Gardiner. 

" As a manual it will prove of the greatest practical value, 
while to the general reader it will afford a clear and interesting 
account of events. We know of no more spirited and attractive 
recital of the great era. " — Boston Saturday Evening Gazette. 

" The thrilling story of those times has never been told so 
vividly or succinctly as in this volume." — Episcopal Register. 



EPOCHS OF MODERN- HISTORY. 

THE PURITAN REVOLUTION; and the First 
Two Stuarts, 1 603- 1 660. By Samuel Rawson 
Gardiner. 

" The narrative is condensed and brief, yet sufficiently com- 
prehensive to give an adequate view of the events related." 
— Chicago Standard. 

"Mr. Gardiner uses his researches in an admirably clear 
and fair way." — Congregaiionalist. 

' * The sketch is concise, but clear and perfectly intelligible." 
—Hartford Courant. 

THE ENGLISH RESTORATION AND LOUIS 
XIV., from the Peace of Westphalia to the 
Peace of Nimwegen. By Osmund Airy, M.A. 

" It is crisply and admirably written. An immense amount 
of information is conveyed and with great clearness, the 
arrangement of the subjects showing great skill and a thor- 
ough command of the complicated theme." — Boston Saturday 
Evening Gazette. 

"The author writes with fairness and discrimination, and 
has given a clear and intelligible presentation of the time." — 
New York Evangelist. 

THE FALL OF THE STUARTS; and Western 
Europe. By Rev. Edward Hale, M.A. 

" A valuable compend to the general reader and scholar." 
— Providence Journal. 

"It will be found of great value. It is a very graphic 
account of the history of Europe during the 17th century, 
and is admirably adapted for the use of students. " — Boston- 
Saturday Evening Gazette. 
' 'An admirable handbook for the student. " — The Churchman, 

THE AGE OF ANNE. By Edward E. Morris, M.A. 

"The author's arrangement of the material is remarkably 
clear, his selection and adjustment of the facts judicious, his 
historical judgment fair and candid, while the style wins by 
its simple elegance." — Chicago Standard. 

' ' An excellent compendium of the history of an important 
period. " — The Watchman. 



EPOCHS OF MODERN HISTORY. 

THE EARLY HANOVERIANS— Europe from 
the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Aix- 
la-Chapelle. By Edward E. Morris, M,A. 

" Masterly, condensed, and vigorous, this is one of the 
books which it is a delight to read at odd moments ; which 
are broad and suggestive, and at the same time condensed in 
treatment. " — Christian Advocate. 

" A remarkably clear and readable summary of the salient 
points of interest. The maps and tables, no less than the 
author's style and treatment of the subject, entitle the volume 
to the highest claims of recognition." — Boston Daily Ad- 
vertiser. 

FREDERICK THE GREAT, AND THE SEVEN 
YEARS' WAR. By F. W. Longman. 

"The subject is most important, and the author has treated 
it in a way which is both scholarly and entertaining." — The 
Churchman. 

"Admirably adapted to interest school boys, and older 
heads will find it pleasant reading."— A'.fw York Tribune. 

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, AND FIRST 
EMPIRE. By William O'Connor Morris. With 
Appendix by Andrew D. White, LL.D., ex-President of 
Cornell University. 

" We have long needed a simple compendium of this period, 
and we have here one which is brief enough to be easily run 
through with, and yet particular enough to make entertaining 
reading." — New York Evening Post. 

" The author has well accomplished his difficult task of 
sketching in miniature the grand and crowded drama of the 
French Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire, showing 
himself to be no servile compiler, but capable of judicious 
and independent cni\c\?>m"—SpringJield Republican. 

THE EPOCH OF REFORM— 1 830-1 850. By 

Justin McCarthy. 

" Mr. McCarthy knows the period of which he writes 
thoroughly, and the result is a narrative that is at once enter- 
taining and trustworthy."— iV^w York Examiner. 

" The narrative is clear and comprehensive, and told with 
abundant knowledge and grasp of the suhject."— Boston 
Courier. 



IMPORTANT HISTORICAL 
WORKS. 

THE DAWN OF HISTORY. An Introduction 
to Pre- Historic Study. New and Enlarged Edition. 
Edited by C. F. Keary. i2mo, cloth, $1.25. 

This work treats successively of the earliest traces of man ; 
of language, its growth, and the story it tells of the pre-his- 
toricusersof it ; of early social life, the religions, mythologies, 
and folk-tales, and of the history of writing. The present 
edition contains about one hundred pages of new matter, 
embodying the results of the latest researches, 

''A fascinating manual. In its way, the work is a model 
of what a popular scientific work should be. " — Boston Sat. 
Eve. Gazette. 

THE ORIGIN OF NATIONS. By Professor George 
Rawlinson, M.A. i2mo, with maps, $1.00. 

The first part of this book discusses the antiquity of civiliza- 
tion in Egypt and the other early nations of the East. The 
second part is an examination of the ethnology of Genesis, 
showing its accordance with the latest results of modem 
ethnographical science. 

' ' A work of genuine scholarly excellence, and a useful 
offset to a great deal of the superficial current literature on 
such subjects. " — Congregationalist. 

MANUAL OF MYTHOLOGY. For the Use 
of Schools, Art Students, and General 
Readers. Founded on the Works of Pet- 
iscus, Preller, and Welcker. By Alexander 
S. Murray, Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 
British Museum. With 45 Plates. Reprinted from the 
Second Revised London Edition. Crown Svo, $1.75. 

" It has been acknowledged the best work on the subject 
to be found in a concise form, and as it embodies the results 
of the latest researches and discoveries in ancient mythologies, 
it is superior for school and general purposes as a handbook 
to any of the so-called standard works." — Cleveland Herald. 

"Whether as a manual for reference, a text-book for school 
use, or for the general reader, the book will be found very 
valuable and interesting." — Boston Journal. 



IMPORTANT HISTORICAL WORKS. 

THE HISTORY OF ROME, from the Earliest 
Time to the Period of Its Decline. By Dr. 

Theodor Mommsen. Translated by W. P. Dickson, D.D., 
LL.D. Reprinted from the Revised London Edition. Four 
volumes, crown 8vo. Price per set, $8.00. 

" A work of the very highest merit; its learning is exact 
and profound ; its narrative full of genius and skill ; its 
descriptions of men are admirably vivid." — London Times. 

"Since the days of Niebuhr, no work on Roman History 
has appeared that combines so much to attract, instruct, and 
charm the reader. Its style — a rare quality in a German 
author — is vigorous, spirited, and animated." — Dr. Schmitz. 

THE PROVINCES OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 
From Caesar to Diocletian. By Theodor 
Mommsen. Translated by William P. Dickson, D.D., 
LL.D. With maps. Two vols., 8vo, $6.00. 

" The author draws the wonderfully rich and varied picture 
of the conquest and administration of that great circle of 
peoples and lands which formed the empire of Rome outside 
of Italy, their agriculture, trade, and manufactures, their 
artistic and scientific life, through all degrees of civilization, 
with such detail and completeness as could have come from 
no other hand than that of this great master of historical re- 
search." — Prof. W. A. Packard, Princeton College. 

THE HISTORY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 

Abridged from the History by Professor Theodor Mommsen, 
by C. Bryans and F. J. R. Hendy. i2mo, $1.75. 

" It is a genuine boon that the essential parts of Mommsen's 
Rome are thus brought within the easy reach of all, and the 
abridgment seems to me to preserve unusually well the glow 
and movement of the original." — Prof. Tracy Peck, Yale 
University. 

"The condensation has been accurately and judiciously 
effected. I heartily commend the volume as the most adequate 
embodiment, in a single volume, of the main results of modern 
historical research in the field of Roman affairs." — Prof. 
Henry M. Baird, University of City of New York. 



IMPORTANT HISTORICAL WORKS. 

THE HISTORY OF GREECE. By Prof. Dr. 
Ernst Curtius. Translated by Adolphus William Ward, 
M.A., Fellow of St. Peter's College, Cambridge, Prof, of 
History in Owen's College, Manchester. Five volumes, 
crown 8vo. Price per set, $10.00. 

** We cannot express our opinion of Dr. Curtius' book bet- 
ter than by saying that it may be fitly ranked with Theodor 
Mommsen's great work. " — London Spectator. 

"As an introduction to the study of Grecian history, no 
previous work is comparable to the present for vivacity and 
picturesque beauty, while in sound learning and accuracy of 
statement it is not inferior to the elaborate productions which 
enrich the literature of the age." — N, Y. Daily Tribune. 

C>^SAR: a Sketch. By James Anthony Froude, 
M.A. i2mo, gilt top, $1.50. 

' ' This book is a most fascinating biography and is by far 
the best account of Julius Csesar to be found in the English 
language." — The London Standard. 

"He combines into a compact and nervous narrative all 
that is known of the persona), social, political, and military 
life of Csesar ; and with his sketch of Csesar includes other 
brilliant sketches of the great man, his friends, or rivals, 
who contemporaneously with him formed the principal figures 
in the Roman world." — Harper" s Monthly . 

CICERO. Life of Marcus Tullius Cicero. By 

William Forsyth, M.A., Q.C. 20 Engravings. New 
Edition. 2 vols., crown 8vo, in one, gilt top, $2.50. 

The author has not only given us the most complete and 
well-balanced account of the life of Cicero ever published ; 
he has drawn an accurate and graphic picture of domestic life 
among the best classes of the Romans, one which the reader 
of general literature, as well as the student, may peruse with 
pleasure and profit. 

"A scholar without pedantry, and a Christian without cant, 
Mr. Forsyth seems to have seized with praiseworthy tact the 
precise attitude which it behooves a biographer to take when 
narrating the life, the personal life of Cicero. Mr. Forsyth 
produces what we venture to say will become one of the 
classics of English biographical literature, and will be wel- 
comed by readers of all ages and both sexes, of all professions 
and of no profession at all. " — London Quarterly. 



VALUABLE WORKS ON 
CLASSICAL LITERATURE. 

THE HISTORY OF ROMAN LITERATURE. 
From the Earliest Period to thie Death of 

Marcus AureliuS. With Chronological Tables, etc., 
for the use of Students. By C. T. Cruttwell, M.A. Crown 
8vo, $2.50. 

Mr. Cruttwell's book is written throughout from a purely 
literary point of view, and the aim has been to avoid tedious 
and trivial details. The result is a volume not only suited 
for the student, but remarkably readable for all who possess 
any interest in the subject. 

" Mr. Cruttwell has given us a genuine history of Roman 
literature, not merely a descriptive list of authors and their 
productions, but a well elaborated portrayal of the successive 
stages in the intellectual development of the Romans and the 
various forms of expression which these took in literature." — 
A\ V. Nation. 

UNIFORM WITH THE ABOVE. 

A HISTORY OF GREEK LITERATURE. 
From the Earliest Period of Demosthenes. 

By Frank Byron Jevons, M.A., Tutor in the University 
of Durham. Crown 8vo, $2.50. 

The author goes into detail with sufficient fullness to make 
the history complete, but he never loses sight of the com- 
manding lines along which the Greek mind moved, and a 
clear understanding of which is necessary to every intelligent 
student of universal literature. 

" It is beyond all question the best history of Greek litera- 
ture that has hitherto been "published." — London Spectator. 

' ' With such a book as this within reach there is no reason 
why any intelligent English reader may not get a thorough 
and comprehensive insight into the spirit of Greek literature, 
of its historic development, and of its successive and chief 
masterpieces, which are here so finely characterized, analyzed, 
and criticised." — Chicasro Advance. 



TRANSLATIONS OF PLATO. 

THE DIALOGUES OF PLATO. Translated 
into English, with Analysis and Introduc- 
tions. By B. JowETT, M.A., Master of Balliol College, 
Oxford. A new and cheaper edition. Four vols., crown 8vo, 
per set, $8.00. 

" The present work of Professor Jowett will be welcomed 
with profound interest, as the only adequate endeavor to 
transport the most precious monument of Grecian thought 
among the familiar treasures of English literature. The 
noble reputation of Professor Jowett, both as a thinker and a 
scholar, is a valid guaranty for the excellence of his perfor- 
mance." — New York Tribune. 

SOCRATES. A Translation of the Apology, 
Crito, and parts of the Phaedo of Plato. 

Containing the Defence of Socrates at his Trial, his Conver- 
sation in Prison, with his Thoughts on the Future Life, and 
an Account of his Death. With an Introduction by Professor 
W. W. Goodwin, of Harvard College. i2mo, cloth, $1.00; 
paper, 50 cents. 

TALKS WITH SOCRATES ABOUT LIFE. 
Translations from the Gorgias and the 

Republic of Plato. i2mo, cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 
cents. 

A DAY IN ATHENS WITH SOCRATES. 
Translations from the Protagoras and the 

Republic of Plato. Being conversations between 
Socrates and other Greeks on Virtue and Justice. i2mo, 
cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cents. 

" Eminent scholars, men of much Latin and more Greek, 
attest the skill and truth with which the versions are made ; 
we can confidently speak of their English grace and clearness. 
They seem a ' model of style,' because they are without 
manner and perfectly simple." — W. D. Howells. 

"We do not remember any translation of a Greek author 
which is a better specimen of idiomatic English than this, or 
a more faithful rendering of the real spirit of the original 
into English as good and as simple as the Greek." — A^ew York 
Evening Post. 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 

743 and 745 Broadway, New York. 



